
flttR ) - L 

Book _ti 

Copyright^ 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



The Evolution of 
Religion 



BY 



William A. Hinckle, M. D. 



PUBLISHED BY THE AUTHOR 

PEORIA, ILLINOIS 

1910 






Copyright 1910 by 
William A, Hinckle 



(gC!.A256490 



To my Wife 

EMMA RODERICK HINCKLE, 

This Book is Dedicated. 



i 



Foreword. 

In these days, when the so-called supernat- 
ural is everywhere becoming natural, when law 
and progress are more and more being rec- 
ognized as universal, it is not surprising that 
there should be a growing tendency to discredit 
the supernatural in religion, and to make re- 
ligion a natural product of human evolution. 
The superhuman origin and authority of the 
Bible, the foundation upon which rests the 
claim that Christianity is a supernatural or 
revealed religion, is being discredited. The 
reality and desirability of such authority is 
being disputed. Even the superhuman origin 
and nature of Jesus, the cornerstone of ortho- 
dox Christianity, is being denied. 

While much has been written along these 
lines, little of it has been so concise, readable, 
and reverent as to appeal to the average man. 
Recognizing this dearth of available popular lit- 
erature on these important subjects, the author 
has endeavored to show in a brief and interest- 
ing manner the evidence, or rather the lack of 
evidence, as to the superhuman origin and char- 
acter of our Bible, our religion, and of the great 
teacher, Jesus. As a corollary, some evidence 
as to their natural origin and character has 
been adduced. 

While it was his purpose to discredit the 
supernatural origin of religions in general and 
of Christianity in particular, the author feels 
that in doing so, he has done no injury to the 
cause of true religion, but has rendered it 
service. 

W. A. H. 

December 25, 1909. 



CONTENTS 



Page 
FOREWORD 7 

CHAPTER I. The Foundation of Faith— Show- 
ing reason to be superior to revelation in all mat- 
ters of belief 11 

CHAPTER II. The Evolution of the Bible- 
Telling how and when the words of men became 
the Word of God 17 

CHAPTER III. Revealed Religion— Showing 

how revelation and superhuman authority have 
ever been a deteriment to true religion 49 

CHAPTER IV. The Evolution of the Trinity— 

Showing how and when Jesus, a devout son of 
man, came to be considered a virgin-born Son 
of God 84 

CHAPTER V. The Gods That Are No More- 
Being the story of dead and dying gods and the 
•volution of the god idea 130 

CHAPTER VI. Evolved Religion— Showing 

true religion to be ethics, not theology; a life, 
not a belief; an evolution, not a revelation 156 



if When they saw the light, some preferred it 
to the darkness y 



CHAPTER 1 

The Foundation of Faith 

or 

What Shall We Believe? 

It was said by one of olden times : " Prove all 
things ; hold fast that which is good. ' ' This bit 
of good advice is no less appropriate now than 
it was nineteen hundred years ago when Paul, 
its reputed author, addressed it to the Thessa- 
lonians. Had he told us by what process we 
should " prove all things," by what means we 
are to know what "is good/' what a lot of bad 
mistakes his followers might have avoided. 
Perhaps he did not think it necessary to give 
explicit directions as to so simple a proposition. 
Perhaps he thought that all rational beings 
would know that to prove anything requires 
the exercise of their reason, that faculty which 
entitles them to be called rational. 

Simple as seems the proposition that we 
should investigate or prove all things by the 
process of reasoning, and that we should accept, 
believe, or hold fast only that which to us seems 
good or true, yet there are many who in laying 
the foundation for their belief would assign to 
this faculty of the human mind a role of only 
secondary importance. Especially is this true 



12 The Evolution of Religion 

in religion, in which many would place author- 
ity above reason, forgetting that without reason 
there can be no authority. 

One who would found his beliefs on authority 
must first determine what to him shall be 
authority. To do this, he must exercise his rea- 
son. If the authority to be followed be a relig- 
ious one, then he must choose between the 
Christian Bible, the Mohammedan Koran, the 
Buddhist Tripitaka, the Brahman Vedas, and 
other so-called sacred books or authorities. To 
" prove" these authorities and determine to 
which one he will "hold fast," he must depend 
upon his reason, He may consciously or uncon- 
sciously reason that his ancesters, his friends, 
and his countrymen have for generations ac- 
cepted the Bible as authority, and, therefore, 
that it must be the authority. Or he may care- 
fully read, study, and compare all these sacred 
books, and then, by a more complex process of 
reasoning, may decide to accept the Bible or 
some other book; or he may reject all of them. 

If he should accept the Bible as authority, 
then by further reasoning, he must determine 
which of the various versions of the book he 
will follow. In the same way, he must decide if 
this authority is fallible or infallible; whether 
it is authority on all subjects, or only on certain 
subjects. By some process of reasoning, he 
must reconcile or explain away all the apparent 



The Foundation of Faith 



13 



contradictions in this authoritative book; and 
by reasoning he must determine the meaning of 
every sentence in the book. Back of every de- 
cision, back of every belief is some kind of rea- 
soning, either conscious or unconscious, simple 
or complex, logical or illogical. No authority 
can be authority to any one until it has been 
accepted as such by that higher authority, his 
reason, — that authority which to each indi- 
vidual is superior to all others. However crude, 
imperfect, or unreliable that higher authority 
may be, it is always the court of last resort. 

As has been so ably pointed out by others, if a 
superhuman revelation has really ever been 
given to man, it could be such a revelation only 
to those who were the direct recipients of it. 
To all others it is merely a human revelation, a 
matter of human testimony. If gods or angels 
really did talk to Mohammed, their message 
was a superhuman revelation only to him, to all 
others it is but a human revelation from Mo- 
hammed. The truth or falsity of this revela- 
tion, each person must determine for himself by 
using his reason. 

When it is claimed that any person whomso- 
ever is or has been in more direct communica- 
tion with the Infinite than that possible to ordi- 
nary mortals, and when it is claimed that such 
person has received a revelation from such 
•ource, the evidence of such claim should be ex- 



14: The Evolution of Religion 

amined by each individual in the light of rea- 
son, and by that light, must each determine for 
himself if he will or will not accept the claim 
as true. It matters not if the claimant be a 
Moses or a Mohammed, a Joshua or a Joseph 
Smith; the claim of each should be subjected 
to the same scrutiny. Only thus can we hope to 
learn the truth. Likewise, if any assume to 
have unusual, or more direct influence with the 
Supreme Ruler than that possessed by humanity 
in general, these claims, too, must be judged in 
the light of reason. It matters not if the claim- 
ant be a fortune-telling mendicant, who for the 
price of a meal will agree to change the decrees 
of fate, or if he be an infallible pope, who for 
other considerations, will presume to influence 
the destiny of the soul of man ; all such claims 
must be tried alike before the bar of reason. 

Even beliefs that are founded on the testi- 
mony of others are really based on reason ; for 
we must always use our reason to determine 
the value of testimony. Hence, in the last anal- 
ysis, belief is always based on reason. A belief 
based on insufficient or illogical reasoning we 
call prejudice or credulity. One based on un- 
conscious reasoning by a specialized process we 
call instinct. When we can demonstrate a be- 
lief to be true, then it becomes knowledge or 
human experience. 

As rational beings, we may be justified in 



The Foundation of Faith 15 

believing or accepting as true certain theories 
which as yet we can not demonstrate. Reason- 
ing from the things we know, or from those we 
think we know, we may come to believe that 
there is that in man which survives after the 
change we call death, — a something we call the 
soul. We can not demonstrate this to be true 
and thus class it with facts, but as the belief 
does not contradict human experience or knowl- 
edge, we are justified in holding such belief if it 
does no violence to our reason. 

Naturally, human beliefs will vary much, be- 
cause human ability to reason logically varies 
much, and because the premises from which we 
start vary much. But as unreliable as is human 
reason, and as uncertain as are the beliefs it 
leads us to, it is the only evidence we have of 
those things of which we can not know. When 
we stray from the beaten path of knowledge, 
reason is our safest guide; on the shoreless 
ocean of speculation, reason is our surest com- 
pass. 

How irrational then must be any belief based 
on authority; how unjust any creed which 
would make reason subservient to revelation; 
how absurd any plan of salvation which de- 
mands of all human beings a definite and uni- 
form belief about things unknown and unknow- 
able. Imagine if possible an all-wise, all-just 
God creating man, endowing him with reason 



16 The Evolution of Religion 

to guide him, and then damning him because 
that reason led him astray. If we must use our 
reason whether we will or not, and if reason is 
our safest guide in dealing with the unknown, 
why try to lay it aside? why not follow where 
it leads, especially in dealing with such impor- 
tant subjects as God, the Bible, and religion? 

In the light of reason, let us examine the 
foundation of our faith; let us " prove" our 
beliefs and "hold fast" only that which is 
good, — that which will stand the test of reason 
or experience. Let us follow this heavenly light 
though it leads us away from the flesh-pots of 
contentment, through the dead sea of our cher- 
ished hopes, over the arid desert of disappoint- 
ment ; aye, let us follow, though our friends for- 
sake us and our enemies make war upon us, and 
though famines of doubt and pestilence of de- 
spair make us to grow sick at heart, carefully, 
cheerfully, let us follow the light of reason, for 
only thus may we hope to reach the promised 
land of truth. 



CHAPTER II. 

The Evolution of the Bible 

or 

How the Words of Men Became the Word 
of God 

Every great religion has its sacred book or 
books, which its adherents consider of more 
than human origin and authority. The Brah- 
man has his Vedas; the Buddhist, his Tripi- 
taka ; the Parsee, his Avesta ; the Mohammedan, 
his Koran ; the Hebrew, his Scriptures, and the 
Christian, his Bible. On these sacred books the 
followers of these various religions build their 
beliefs; by them they form their creeds; from 
them they draw their inspiration. In many 
respects all these sacred books are much alike. 
They all contain the highest ideals, the purest 
morals, and the sublimest conceptions of God 
and man that were known among the people 
with whom these sacred writings originated. 
Likewise, all of them contain much that is 
neither edifying nor inspiring. 

Living in a land of Bibles we should know 
something about the origin and reputed au- 
thority of this sacred book. Not only should 
we know what the Bible says, but we should 
Jmow what the JJible is if we are to know why 



18 The Evolution of Religion 

we believe what we believe. Concerning the 
Bible, its origin and teachings, there are two 
extreme views. There is the belief held by a 
great majority of Christians that in some 
miraculous, indescribable, unknowable way 
God wrote the Bible, or caused it to be written. 
To them it is a sacred revelation to be read, but 
not to be questioned, a book to be believed, but 
not to be analyzed. They are prone to read the 
Ten Commandments, which tell of our obliga;- 
tions to God and to our fellow men. They 
repeat those beautiful Psalms which make the 
soul thrill with love and hope. They meditate 
upon the Beatitudes of Jesus, and a spirituality 
strange and new steals over them. They read 
of Paul and the Apostles, and they are filled 
with an ardent desire to bring all mankind unto 
a realization of the higher things of life. Like 
a fond, indulgent mother, who can see no evil 
in her erring son, they close their eyes to those 
parts of the Bible which are degrading to man 
and a blasphemy to God. They judge the 
whole by that which is good, and declare the 
whole book from cover to cover, to be abso- 
lutely and literally the direct and infallible 
"Word of God. With them, when science and 
the Bible conflict, science is wrong; when hu- 
man experience and the Bible disagree, human 
experience stands for naught ; when reason aijd 
the Bible are opposed, reason must go. 



The Evolution of the Bible 19 

Then there is another extreme class. They 
know the history of the Bible. They see the 
many absurdities and contradictions in its 
pages. They hear how the laws of nature are 
set aside at the request of human beings. They 
read how the sun in his eternal rounds of night 
and day was even stopped at the command of 
Joshua that the Chosen People might have more 
time to complete their bloody slaughter. They 
read in the twenty-first and twenty-second 
chapters of Deuteronomy that it was God's 
command that a disobedient son and a fallen 
woman should be stoned to death. In the thir- 
teenth chapter they read: "If thy brother, the 
son of thy mother, or thy daughter, or the wife 
of thy bosom, or thy friend which is as thine 
own soul, shall entice thee secretly, saying, Let 
us go and serve other gods * * # thou shall 
surely kill him; thine hand shall be the first 
upon him to put him to death." In the sixth 
chapter of Second Samuel they read how the 
law of the Lord was kept in an ark which no 
man dare touch, and how once when the ark 
was being moved on an ox-cart, the oxen stum- 
bled and the driver, Uzzah, put forth his hand 
to steady the ark, lest it fall. "And the anger 
of Jehovah was kindled against Uzzah, and 
God smote him there for his error, and he died 
by the ark of God." Again they read in First 
Samuel, the sixth chapter, how the people of 



20 The Evolution of Religion 

Bethshemesh were curious concerning the ark 
and looked inside of it. For this the Lord 
M smote of the men of Bethshemesh, because 
they had looked into the ark of Jehovah, he 
smote of the people seventy men and fifty thou- 
sand men." This class reads these and hun- 
dreds of similar passages in the Bible and their 
sense of justice and humanity cries out against 
attributing such outrages to God. They judge 
the whole by that which is bad, and declare the 
Bible to be the work of men, and bad men at 
that, who are trying to shoulder the responsibil- 
ity of their crimes and meanness upon an un- 
protesting God. 

Neither of these conceptions of the Bible are 
acceptable to the scientific mind, for neither of 
them are justified by the evidence concerning 
it. But there is a conception of the Bible which 
does no violence to truth, to reason, or to the 
fundamental teachings of any true religion. 
This true and rational conception, which is 
slowly but surely supplanting the old super- 
stitious belief, is arrived at by a study of the 
origin, growth, and character of the Bible. 

When one affirms that to be true which is 
contrary to reason and human experience, he 
must offer positive evidence of the truth of his 
claim before rational men are expected to be- 
lieve. If such evidence cannot be produced, 
then the claim falls without being refuted. For 



The Evolution of the Bible 21 

example, Joseph Smith, the founder of Mor- 
monism, says that an angel appeared to him 
and told him to dig in the earth at a certain 
place. He says he did as commanded and found 
a book with gold leaves, on which were writings 
in an unknown tongue. With the book was a 
pair of spectacles, by using which he was able 
to read and translate the writings into Eng- 
lish. As evidence of the truth of this won- 
derful story, he offers us the translation he 
made, which is called the Book of Mormon. Do 
you believe this story? I do not. We are un- 
der no obligations to believe it. Joseph Smith 
has offered no reliable evidence of this wonder- 
ful tale, and as his story is contrary to reason 
and human experience, we must refuse to con- 
sider the matter seriously. We are not called 
upon to disprove the miraculous origin of this 
Mormon Bible. The Mormons must prove it. 

The same holds good with reference to the 
Christian Bible. When any one affirms that it 
is of more than human origin and authority, 
we are not called upon to disprove their claim, 
but they must offer some positive evidence of 
the truth of their assertion. This they try to 
avoid by endeavoring to shift the burden of 
proof upon the disbeliever. To do this, they 
assert that ancient traditions and beliefs must 
be accepted as true unless disproven. The as- 
sumption that the antiquity of a tradition or 



22 The Evolution of Religion 

belief is evidence of its truthfulness, holds good 
only when such traditions and beliefs are not 
contrary to reason and human experience. If 
ancient traditions are to be accepted as true 
regardless of their character or source, then 
we must accept the sacred writings of the Brah- 
mans, the Buddhists, the Parsees and many oth- 
ers whose traditions of superhuman origin are 
far more ancient than those of the Christian 
Bible. No, the burden of proof can not be 
shifted to the disbeliever. 

Let us examine some of the other evidence 
offered and see if it is sufficient to establish a 
belief in the extraordinary claims that are 
made for the Bible. First, we are told that the 
Bible itself claims to be of more than human 
origin. This is a mistake. Nowhere does the 
Bible claim to be the Word of God. There are 
certain passages in the Bible, especially in the 
Old Testament, which do claim to be the direct 
"Word of God, though these passages are com- 
paratively few. But unless we are offered some 
reasonably certain evidence that God really did 
say these things to these men, we must refuse 
to accept these passages as literally true. We re- 
fuse to believe that God spoke to Joseph Smith, 
to Buddha, and to other men, and we can do no 
less with Moses, Aaron, or Isaiah; for there is 
no more evidence of the one than of the other. 

The closing verses of Revelation are often 



The Evolution of the Bible 23 

quoted by superficial readers as a Bible declara- 
tion that the entire Bible is the infallible and 
unchanging Word of God. The Revised Ver- 
sion reads: "I testify unto every man that 
heareth the words of the prophesy of this book, 
if any man add unto them, God shall add unto 
him the plagues which are written in this book ; 
and if any man shall take away from the words 
of the book of this prophesy, God shall take 
away his part from the tree of life, and out of 
the holy city, which are written in this book. ,y 
A careful reading of these verses will show that 
they refer only to the book of Revelation and 
not to the entire sixty-six books of the Bible. 
Nor could these passages mean otherwise; for 
as we shall see later, the Bible as we know it 
was not in existence when the book of Revela- 
tion was written. 

Again, it is claimed that the Bible must be 
of more than human origin because it is more 
profound, more beautiful, and more inspiring 
than other books. Even if this claim of superior 
excellence were true, it would certainly not 
imply that the whole or any part of the Bible 
is the superhuman Word of God. No other 
dramatist ever wrote as did Shakespeare; no 
other poet ever wrote like Homer; no other 
orator spoke like Demosthenes. Were these 
men and their works, therefore, more than 
human? No, superior excellence can not be 



24 The Evolution of Religion 

accepted as evidence of superhuman origin. 
Then, too, there is much in the Bible that is far 
from beautiful and inspiring. Take the book 
of Esther — it is but a tale of vice and drunken 
debauchery; of crime and murder. Nowhere 
does the name of God appear in the whole book. 
In it there is but one decent character, and she 
receives no word of commendation from the 
writer, but is rather condemned. If the beauty 
and spirituality of some of the Bible passages 
indicate that they are of God, then the book 
of Esther and some of the other Old Testa- 
ment passages would just as truly indicate that 
they are of the Devil. 

Another bit of testimony offered as to the 
superhuman origin and authority of the Bible, 
is that certain Bible characters prophesied or 
foretold certain events. Even if these reputed 
phrophesies were genuine, it would only indi- 
cate that those who made them were good 
judges of the trend of human events, or that 
they had extraordinary powers of intuition. A 
few such prophesies would certainly not indi- 
cate that all the books of the Bible are of super- 
human origin and authority. Keputed prophe- 
sies of future events which later came true are 
found in other books both sacred and profane, 
yet these books are not on that account re- 
garded as of other than human origin. 

The last evidence offered as to the superhuman 



The Evolution of the Bible 25 

origin and character of the Bible is what is 
called the evidence of the spirit, or spirit- 
ual insight. This so-called evidence is said to 
be a sort of spiritual consciousness, which some 
believers claim assures them that the Bible is 
the Word of God. This same sort of evidence 
is offered by many as proof of other creeds and 
doctrines. The average mortal can see little 
difference between this spiritual insight and 
an ordniary belief based on desire and imagina- 
tion. Spiritual insight as reliable evidence is 
open to two serious objections. First, it is evi- 
dence which those of us not so gifted can not 
verify, so it can be no evidence to us. Second, 
those gifted with spiritual insight do not al- 
ways agree in their testimony. As we shall see 
later, they disagree much among themselves 
concerning matters where a little common sense 
and reason and a little less spiritual insight 
would have caused them to differ less. When 
those gifted with spiritual insight can not 
agree, ordinary mortals had best follow the dic- 
tates of their reason. There has never been, 
nor can there be, any evidence offered for the 
superhuman origin and authority of the Bible 
but what would apply equally well to other so- 
called sacred books. 

If we accept the Bible as of human origin and 
authority, we will expect it to partake of the 
natures of the men who wrote it. We can then 



26 The Evolution of Religion 

overlook the mistakes and excuse the human 
weakness portrayed in the book. But if we 
accept the Bible as a superhuman revelation 
from God, we must expect it to be of the nature 
of God, perfect in every detail, free from errors 
and contradictions, and infallible in every sub- 
ject of which it treats. That the Bible does not 
measure up to this divine standard of perfec- 
tion is well known to every Bible scholar. Time 
will not permit our citing the numerous mis- 
takes and contradictions which are so promi- 
nent in the Bible. Voltaire, Paine, Ingersol, 
and other infidel writers have long emphasized 
these imperfections. One infidel writer has 
compiled a whole book of Bible contradictions. 
Christian Bible scholars in general have now 
come to know and admit these errors and con- 
tradictions. Dr. Briggs, Professor of Theology 
in the Union Theological Seminary in New 
York, some years ago, in his famous inaugural 
address, said: "It has been taught in recent 
years, and is still taught by some theologians 
that one proved error destroys the authority of 
the Scriptures. I shall venture to affirm that, 
so far as I can see, there are errors in the 
Scriptures that no one has been able to explain 
away; and the theory that they are not in the 
original text is sheer assumption upon which 
no mind can rest with certainty. If such errors 
destroy the authority of the Bible, it is already 



The Evolution of the Bible 27 

destroyed for historians. Men can not shut 
their eyes to truth and facts. But on what 
authority do these theologians drive men from 
the Bible by their theory of inerrancy? The 
Bible itself nowhere makes this claim. The 
creeds of the Church nowhere sanction it. It is 
a ghost of modern evangelicalism to frighten 
children." For this statement Dr. Briggs was 
condemned by the Presbyterian Church and ex- 
cluded from fellowship. 

Dr. Gladden, a profound Bible scholar of the 
Congregational Church, says that the Bible is 
not infallible in the sense in which it is popu- 
larly supposed to be. In it, he says, "human 
ignorance and error have been suffered to 
mingle with the stream of living water through- 
out all its course ; if our assurance of salvation 
was made to depend upon our knowledge that 
every word in the Bible was of divine origin, 
our hope of eternal life would be altogether 
insecure.' ' He further says the Bible is not 
infallible scientifically. It is not infallible his- 
torically. It is not infallible morally. And he 
says "the attempt of any intelligent man to 
maintain the theoretical and ideal infallibility 
of all parts of the writings is a criminal blun- 
der.' J 

Even Jesus frequently showed his disrespect 
and disapproval of many of the Old Testament 
laws and customs. He said: "Ye have heard 



28 The Evolution of Religion 

that it was said, An eye for an eye and a tooth 
for a tooth ; but I say unto you, Resist not him 
that is evil ; but whosoever smiteth thee on thy 
right cheek, turn to him the other also." Again 
he said: "Ye have heard that it was said, 
Thou shalt love thy neighbor and hate thine 
enemy; but I say unto you, Love your ene- 
mies. ' ' 

Likewise, the evidence of science is opposed 
to the infallibility of the Bible. This evidence 
may be summed up in the words of Professor 
Huxley, who said that the order of generation 
as demonstrated by geology, can not be har- 
monized with the process of creation as told in 
Genesis, even though the seven days of crea- 
tion be considered as seven indefinite periods 
of time. 

But the greatest of all testimony against the 
superhuman origin and authority of the Bible is 
the history of the evolution of the book itself 
and the formation of the canon. The canon is 
those books which constitute the Bible. 

The Old Testament is a collection of thirty- 
nine books, written by various authors during 
a period of about one thousand years. The 
Hebrews divided it into three divisions. The 
first division was called The Law. It con- 
sisted of the first five books of the Bible. 
These five books contain the early traditions, 
history, and laws of the Hebrew people up to 



The Evolution of the Bible 29 

about 1400 B. C. The second division of the 
Old Testament they called The Prophets. It 
included twenty-three books. Generally speak- 
ing, these twenty-three books are the rec- 
ords of the traditions, history, and cus- 
toms of the Hebrew people from where The 
Law leaves off, or from about 1400 B. 
C, to about 400 B. C. The third group of 
the Hebrew Scriptures was called The Writings. 
It consisted of eleven books of a varied char- 
acter, such as Psalms, Proverbs, Job, Daniel, 
Esther, and others. The Jews held The Law in 
high esteem. It was regarded by them as more 
sacred and authoritative than The Prophets, 
while The Prophets were held as more sacred 
than The "Writings. In fact, The Writings can 
hardly be said to have been regarded as sacred 
at all. 

Before the Babylonian captivity, the Hebrews 
appear to have had little knowledge or rever- 
ence for those records which later came to be 
regarded as sacred. Just what part of them were 
in existence at that time is not agreed upon by 
Bible scholars. It is generally conceded, how- 
ever, that at least the Ten Commandments and 
perhaps a part of Deuteronomy were written 
and were in the hands of the priests. When 
the people returned from the Babylonian cap- 
tivity about 536 B. C. and began to rebuild their 
temple and renew their national life, a new rev- 



30 The Evolution of Religion 

erence for ancient traditions and laws seems 
to have been kindled among them. In the fifth 
century B. C, Ezra, the scribe, and Nehemiah 
came from Babylon to Jerusalem and brought 
with them a certain Book of the Law. This 
book was doubtless substantially the same as we 
know it today. When, where, and by whom it 
was written is unknown. That it was not writ- 
ten by Moses, to whom it is generally at- 
tributed, is conceded by most Bible scholars. 

About 444 B. C, Ezra and Nehemiah called 
the people together and read to them this new 
Book of the Law and bound the people by a 
solemn covenant to accept and henceforth obey 
it. The Encyclopedia Biblica, which represents 
the consensus of opinion of Bible scholarship, 
says this event took place somewhat earlier 
than 400 B. C, and that by 400 B. C. the canon- 
ization of The Law was completed. 

Dr. Davidson, who is probably the greatest 
authority on this subject, says that the pub- 
lic authority which Ezra conferred upon The 
Law was the first step in the formation of the 
Bible canon. In other words, about 400 B. C. 
the people under the direction of Ezra, had de- 
cided that this Book of the Law was of more 
than human origin and authority. By what 
reason or spiritual insight they came to this 
conclusion, we are not informed, but this event 
marked the beginning of the Bible. 



The Evolution of the Bible 31 

At this date most of the other books of the 
Old Testament were in existence, but they had 
not yet been gathered together, nor were they 
then regarded as other than human documents. 
"With a sacred book or Bible once adopted, it 
was but a matter of time till other writings 
were also accepted as sacred. By about 200 
B. C. the twenty-three books which are grouped 
together as The Prophets were accepted as 
sacred by the Jews and were added to the 
canon. During the next century, or by about 
100 B. C, the third division of the Old Testa- 
ment, called The Writings, was also canonized 
and so became a part of the sacred writings, or 
the Word of God. 

After the canonization of The Law, there was 
a complete and final estrangement between the 
Jews and the Samaritans. So while both of 
these people accepted The Law as the Word of 
God, the Samaritans never accepted The 
Prophets nor The Writings, which the Jews 
later added to the canon of the Scriptures. The 
Sadducees, too, are said to have accepted only 
The Law, though positive evidence of this is 
wanting. 

These additions to the Scriptures were not 
made by the unanimous consent of the Jews. 
Some of these books were regarded by many 
of the Palestine Jews as sacred, but their right 
to this distinction was hotly disputed by others. 



32 The Evolution of Religion 

On this subject, the scholarly Professor David- 
son says: "The canon (of the Old Testament) 
was not considered to be closed in the first 
century before, and the first century after 
Christ. There were doubts about some por- 
tions. The book of Ezekiel gave offense be- 
cause some of the statements seemed to con- 
tradict The Law. Doubts about some of the 
others were of a more serious nature — about 
Ecclesiastes, the Song of Solomon, Esther and 
Proverbs. The first was impugned because it 
had contradictory passages and a heretical 
tendency; the second, because of its worldli- 
ness and sensual tone; Esther, for its want of 
religiousness; and Proverbs, on account of its 
inconsistencies." It was not until about 90 A. 
D. that a Jewish synod finally decreed that The 
Writings were the Word of God. They were 
accepted then, not unanimously, but by a ma- 
jority vote. 

Practically all the Old Testament was orig- 
inally in Hebrew, a language which for centuries 
had been falling into disuse. At the time of 
Jesus, Aramaic was the language of the masses 
and Greek, the language of the educated. Nat- 
urally, there was a demand for the Hebrew 
Scriptures in the Greek language. By the sec- 
ond century B. C. they were translated, prob- 
ably by some of the Alexandrian Jews. To this 
Greels translation there were added fourteen 



The Evolution of the Bible 33 

other books and supplements by the trans- 
lators. These additions were originally written 
in Greek, and were not accepted as sacred by 
most of the Palestine Jews, though they were 
thus regarded by the translators. This Greek 
translation, which was called the Septuagint, 
was the version most in use during the time of 
Jesus, and was doubtless the text from which 
lie and his disciples quoted. 

Thus, at the time of Jesus there were three 
different sacred Scriptures: 1 — the Samaritan 
Scriptures, consisting only of The Law ; 2 — the 
Hebrew Scriptures, consisting of The Law, The 
Prophets, and The Writings ; and 3 — the Greek 
version of the Hebrew Scriptures, consisting of 
The Law, The Prophets, The Writings, and 
fourteen other books and supplements. 

The history of the twenty-seven books that 
constitute the New Testament is somewhat 
more definite than that of the Old Testament. 
After the death of Jesus, certain documents 
began to appear among the Christians. The 
first of these were letters or epistles written 
by Paul to some of the churches which he had 
organized and which needed his encouragement 
and advice. Later other letters or epistles by 
other early Christian writers came into circula- 
tion. Still later various gospels or short 
sketches of the life pf Jesus and his disciples 
were written, 



34 The Evolution of Religion 

These early writings were very numerous. 
During the first two centuries A. D. more than 
forty gospels were in use and a much larger 
number of acts, epistles, and revelations. We 
have records of more than one hundred and 
thirty of these, many of which were regarded 
as sacred in the early Church. Some were in 
the hands of one bishop or church, and some 
were in the possession of another. From this 
great number probably running into the hun- 
dreds, the twenty-seven books which now form 
the New Testament were selected. This process 
of selection was slow and occasioned much dif- 
ference of opinion and not a little hard feeling. 

The first collection of these writings of which 
we have record was made by one Marcion, a 
heretic, about 145 A. D. His canon consisted 
of ten of the Epistles of Paul and one gospel 
or story of Jesus. This gospel was neither of 
the Four Gospels as we know them. So the 
first New Testament of which we have record 
had eleven books in it. Marcion did not regard 
these books as of superhuman origin. 

The next canon of the books which was de- 
clared sacred was about 180 A. D. to 190 A. D. 
This was vouched for by Irenaeus, a man of 
much prominence in the early Church. He laid 
the foundation for our present New Testament. 
His canon was composed of the Four Gospels, 
The Acts, seventeen epistles, and the book of 



The Evolution of the Bible 35 

Revelation, — twenty-three books in all. Twenty- 
two of these books are the same as those in 
our New Testament. Five of our books, he 
does not include; in their stead, he adds one 
book which we do not accept. Irenaeus seemed 
to be gifted with more spiritual insight than 
reason. He argued that as there were four 
quarters to the earth, four universal winds, 
and as animals had four legs, so there could 
neither be more nor less than four gospels. 
And to this man, more than to any other, we 
owe our present New Testament canon. 

Clement of Alexandria, another Church 
Father, had a canon of the New Testament 
about 210 A. D. In it were five books which 
are not in ours, and three of the books which 
are in our Bible he ranked as of inferior au- 
thority. 

Origen was another Church Father who had 
ideas concerning what was the Word of God. 
He flourished about the middle of the third 
century, and was one of the most learned men 
of the early Church. In the Old Testament he 
includes three books not in our Bible, and he 
omits twelve books which we accept. In the 
New Testament he includes six books which 
we do not have, and five of ours, he classes as 
uncertain. 

We might extend this list to great length, 
showing ho^r ths spiritual insight, which is 



36 The Evolution of Religion 

said to have guided the Church Fathers in the 
formation of the canon, failed to make them see 
the matter in the same light. 

Up to the fourth century, our knowledge of 
the different books which had previously been 
held sacred, is derived from the writings of 
the early churchmen. With the fourth cen- 
tury, new evidence appears. The oldest Bible 
in existence dates only from about the middle 
of this century. There are three of these old 
Bibles which afford very valuable evidence 
about the disagreement as to the Bible canon. 
The oldest Bible is now in the Imperial Library 
in St. Petersburg. It contains all the books 
which are in the Protestant Bible and two 
others besides. The second old Bible is in 
the Vatican Library at Rome. It is about 
the same age as the first one, dating from the 
fourth century. This manuscript is incomplete. 
It ends by mutilation at the 9th chapter and 
14th verse of the Epistle to the Hebrews. Up 
to this point, it agrees substantially with the 
third old manuscript, which is in the British 
Museum in London. This third old Bible dates 
from about a century later than the two pre- 
ceding ones. These second and third old Bibles 
contain, besides the books of the Protestant 
canon, nine additional books in the Old Testa- 
ment and two in the New Testament. 

There is a fourth old Bible of a somewhat 



The Evolution of the Bible 37 

later date, which is now in the Eoyal Library in 
Paris. It was written somewhere between the 
fifth and eighth centuries. From the Old Testa- 
ment, it omits three books which we accept, and 
instead has seven books which are not in our 
Bible. In the New Testament, it omits three 
books that we include and includes three that 
we omit. So we see that the four oldest Bibles 
in existence differ greatly as to what is the 
Word of God. 

With all this disagreement as to what writ- 
ings were sacred and what were not, it was 
very desirable that there should be some defi- 
nite information on the subject. Books were 
being read in some churches and accepted by 
some bishops which other churches and bishops 
declared were not sacred. So after about three 
hundred years of this disagreement, some of 
the churches undertook to decide the matter. 
A council of some thirty bishops was held at 
Laodicea, 365 A. D., in which they decided 
what books were canonical, and might be read 
in the churches. The canon they adopted dif- 
fered from our Protestant Bible in including 
two extra books in the Old Testament and in 
omitting the book of Revelation from the New 
Testament. 

The decision of the Council of Laodicea did 
not meet with the approval of all the church- 
men. Two who dissented from this decision 



38 The Evolution of Religion 

were St. Augustine and St. Jerome, men of 
great influence and authority in the early- 
Church. St. Augustine had written much on 
the subject of the canon, and was the predom- 
inating influence at a council of African bish- 
ops held in Hippo, 393 A. D. This council de- 
cided that all the books except one now in- 
cluded in the Protestant Bible were canonical, 
and six other books as well. With the excep- 
tion of two books, the canon they adopted was 
practically the same as the Catholic Bible of 
today. Other Church councils later ratified 
the decision of the Council of Hippo. 

These Church councils were not General 
Church Councils, so their decisions were not 
binding on the Church as a whole, though they 
were accepted by the majority. There were 
some eminent churchmen who dissented from 
the decree. St. Jerome contended that the six 
books which the Council of Hippo had accepted 
through the influence of St. Augustine should 
not be a part of the Bible. He favored a canon 
which is the same as the Protestant Bible to- 
day. For the next thousand years the question 
remained unsettled. 

It was not regarded as necessary that the 
Church should have a definite Word of God, for 
the Church itself was the supreme authority. 
Then came the Eeformation, when Luther and 
other bold spirits disputed the authority of the 



The Evolution of the Bible 39 

Church and declared that the Bible alone was 
the source of authority. These reformers even 
disputed the authority of certain books of the 
Bible which the Church had tacitly accepted 
for a long time, so the Church must needs de- 
cide once for all just what books were the Word 
of God and what were not. 

To meet this, and other demands of the 
Reformation, a General Church Council was 
called, which met in Trent, 1545 A. D. The 
prelates composing this council were of very 
different opinions concerning the Scriptures. 
Some favored dividing the books of the Bible 
into classes, those which were canonical and, 
therefore, authoritative, and those which were 
not. Others wanted all the books classed to- 
gether without distinction. After thirty days 
of disagreement, a majority was finally secured 
which decreed that the canon which had been 
approved by St. Augustine and the Council 
of Hippo, with two additional books, should 
compose the Bible. People now attribute to 
God what was really the work of Irenaeus and 
St. Augustine. Following the declaration as to 
what should be the Word of God, the Council 
of Trent added these words: "If any receive 
not as sacred and canonical the said books 
entire with all their parts * * * let him 
be accursed/ ' Never before the Council of 
Trent was it imperative for a Christian to be- 



40 The 'Evolution of Religion 

lieve all the Bible. Never before must one 
believe or be damned. 

Who were the men that by the authority of 
the Church decreed this new doctrine of the 
infallibility and authority of a book? Dr. Wes- 
cott, the great authority on the New Testament 
canon says: "This fatal decree, in which the 
Council * * * gave a new aspect to the whole 
question of the canon, was ratified by fifty- 
three prelates, among whom there was * * * 
not one scholar distinguished for historical 
learning, not one who was fitted by special 
study for the examination of the subject in 
which the truth could alone be determined by 
the voice of antiquity.' ' 

Just think of it — fifteen hundred years after 
the death of Jesus, before the Church had de- 
cided what was the Word of God, and then 
determined the matter by a vote of human 
beings. However, this decree settled the ques- 
tion for all good Catholics. 

To stem the rising tide of the Reformation, 
the Church threatened with eternal damnation 
all those who followed Luther and the other 
heretics. These threats of a supposedly infalli- 
ble Church were not without there effect on 
the ignorant and superstitious masses. Luther, 
Calvin, and other leaders of the Reformation, 
met these threats of an infallible and authori- 



The Evolution of the Bible 41 

tative Church by the doctrine of the supreme 
authority of the Bible. 

While the reformers believed in the supreme 
authority of the Scriptures rather than of the 
Church, they had opinions of their own as to 
what books should constitute the Scriptures. 
They did not accept the canon that the Church 
had decreed. Their spiritual insight led them 
to different conclusions. The Protestant canon 
was not settled till more than one hundred 
years after the Council of Trent. In 1647 A. D. 
the Westminster assembly declared the Bible 
as we know it to be the Word of God, and also 
declared that seven books and three supple- 
ments of the Catholic Bible were not the Word 
of God. Some of these excluded books are 
undoubtedly superior to some that were re- 
tained. 

The Greek Church followed the example of 
the Catholics and Protestants, and at the Synod 
of Jerusalem, 1672 A. D., officially decreed what 
should be the Word of God. They accepted the 
same canon that the Koman Church had adopted 
despite the fact that for more than a thousand 
years, they had refused to accept the book of 
Revelations as sacred. So the Catholic Bible 
in its present form has existed only since 1546 
A. D.; the Protestant Bible, only since 1647 
A. D., and the Greek Bible, since 1672 A. D. 

The Calvanistic Council of Switzerland in 



42 The Evolution of Religion 

1675 A. D., carried the doctrine of the super- 
human origin and authority of the Bible to its 
logical conclusion by decreeing that, "Almighty 
God not only provided that His Word, which is 
a power to everyone that believes, should be 
committed to writing through Moses, the 
Prophets, and the Apostles, but he has also 
watched over it with a fatherly care up to the 
present time, and guarded lest it might be cor- 
rupted by the craft of Satan or any fraud of 
men." 

Before the invention of printing, Bibles, like 
other books, were written by hand. This process 
was slow and tedious, and many mistakes and 
alterations were made, so it is not surprising 
that no two copies of the Bible were exactly 
alike. The American revision committee is 
authority for the statement that there are more 
than one hundred and fifty thousand different 
readings in the various copies of the New Testa- 
ment alone. Dr. Wescott says, "There can not 
be less than one hundred and twenty thousand 
of these different readings, though of these 
a very large proportion consist of differences 
of spelling and isolated aberrations of scribes. 
Probably there are not more than sixteen hun- 
dred or two thousand in which the true read- 
ing is a matter of uncertainty." Think of it — 
sixteen hundred or two thousand places in an 
authoritative book where we do not know which 



The Evolution of the Bible 43 

of the various readings is the correct one. "With 
the invention of printing, all this changed; 
some uniformity of text was inevitable. The 
Latin translation of St. Jerome was accepted 
as official by the Catholic Church. Most of 
the Protestants accepted King James' English 
translation as their Word of God. 

To one who has followed the history of the 
evolution of the Bible, it must be clear that 
there was a time for each of the books of the 
Bible when it was not regarded as of more than 
human origin and authority. The freedom with 
which the Church Fathers and the founders of 
the Bible canon rejected some books and ac- 
cepted others is evidence that they did not look 
upon them as sacred in the sense in which many 
modern Christians do. Of this Dr. Davidson 
says : "It is clear that the early Church Fathers 
did not use the books of the New Testament 
as sacred documents clothed with divine au- 
thority.' ' He further says that, "one hundred 
and seventy years from the coming of Christ 
elapsed before the collection of the New Tes- 
tament books assumed a form that carried with 
it the idea of holy and inspired." 

While the belief that the Bible was more than 
other books had been gradually gaining ground 
during the centuries before the Reformation, it 
was not looked upon as infallible and free from 
errors or mistakes. Dr. Gladden says that the 



44 The Evolution of Religion 

theory of the unchangeable and absolute divin- 
ity of the words of the Scriptures Kad no prac- 
tical hold upon the early Church, and, "It was 
not until the period succeeding the Reformation 
that the dogma of Bible infallibility was clearly 
formulated and imposed upon the Protestant 
Church." 

The Reformers early taught that not only the 
meaning but the very words of the Scriptures 
were dictated by the Holy Ghost. This view 
was long maintained with all strictness, and 
many a man has been made a heretic for deny- 
ing it. Within the last century this doctrine 
has been somewhat modified. The arguments 
and the ridicule of infidels - on the outside, 
and the study and investigation of the Chris- 
tian critics on the inside of the Church have 
begun to show the Bible in its true light. What, 
then, is the Bible, and what shall be our atti- 
tude toward it? 

The Bible is a collection of writings by many 
different authors covering a period of many 
centuries. The Old Testament is the best lit- 
erature of the Hebrew race. It records their 
myths and fables, their songs and poetry, their 
hopes and their beliefs, their religion and their 
philosophy, their laws and their customs, their 
traditions and their history. It contains much 
that is true and good, and much that is false 
and bad. It is the records of their religious 



The Evolution of the Bible 45 

and political evolution from a roving band of 
idolators till they became a mighty nation, wor- 
shipping only one god. Then it records their 
decline. After their rise and fall, memories of 
their departed glories filled them with an undue 
regard for the records of their better days. So 
these writings gradually attained a sanctity 
and a reverence, which every dying people be- 
stow on the annals of their departed glories. 
Such is the Old Testament. 

The New Testament records how from this 
declining race came one of those great spiritual 
leaders which have at intervals appeared among 
the sons of men to inspire them with the lofty 
ideals of a better life. Like other great and 
good men, his purpose was misunderstood and 
his teachings miscoustrued by the people. He 
was treated to a crown of thorns and honored 
with a martyr's doom. After his death, like 
other great teachers, he was deified and given a 
reverence not his due, and one to which he did 
not aspire. The records and traditions of his 
life and his teachings grew and multiplied in 
profusion. Later some of these writings came 
to be considered as sacred. These sacred rec- 
ords are the New Testament. Later these New 
Testament records were added to the sacred 
writings of the Old Testament, and both were 
then regarded as of superior merit and author- 
ity. During the dark ages, with its dearth of 



46 The Evolution of Religion 

scientific acumen and critical insight, this rev- 
erence grew till at last the Church declared 
them to be the superhuman and infallible Word 
of God. 

Such, in brief, is what the Bible is — a human 
record of the political and spiritual evolution 
of human beings and their growing conception 
of God and religion. The Bible itself teaches 
us this. History shows it to be so. Human ex- 
perience disproves any other origin. Keason 
disputes any other conception of the book. 

The historical facts here presented concerning 
the origin and evolution of the Bible are known 
and admitted by practically all Bible scholars 
and should be known to every Christian. Yet 
these truths are never presented to the laity. 
As a result, many who look to the pulpit for 
truth and guidance have been led into narrow 
and false beliefs concerning God and the Bible. 
They have been taught that a divine revelation 
is the foundation of religion, and so have ac- 
quired low conceptions of some of the great 
fundamentals of life. Many others who could 
not accept this revelation as divine have, there- 
fore, rejected both the revelation and religion. 
A narrow and irrational theology has filled the 
world with infidels. Dr. Gladden says, "This 
kind of ' lying for God' has driven hundreds of 
thousands already into irreconcilable aliena^ 



The Evolution of the Bible 47 

tion from the Christian Church. It is time to 
stop." 

Some will say, "If you take away the super- 
human origin and authority of the Bible, you 
destroy religion, you take away our only moral 
guide and leave us drifting on an unknown 
sea." Not so, the foundation of religion and 
morals is independent of any book or verbal 
revelation. It is a part of man and nature. True 
religion is a realization of one's relations and 
obligations to God and his fellowmen. The 
Bible, like other writings, both sacred and pro- 
fane, may help to point out the way to true re- 
ligion and to God, but it is no necessary part of 
that religion, or of God. All that is good or true 
or helpful in the Bible will still remain for us aft- 
er a belief in its superhuman origin has ceased 
to exist. With this view of the Bible as a work 
of man, all its cruelties and immoralities, its 
absurdities and contradictions, Deuteronomy 
and Esther, Jonah and the whale — all cease to 
trouble. They are but the chaff amidst the 
wheat, the dross amidst the gold. 

These facts take away no fundamental truth 
of any true religion, for there is no religion 
higher than the truth. No ancient tradition, no 
Church council, no Christian creed can decide 
for you or for me what is true, what is good, 
what is inspired, what is the Word of God. 
God's ever inspiring word is written on every 



48 The Evolution of Religion 

page of nature. The laws of nature are the 
laws of nature 's God, not proclaimed alone to a 
favored few in ages past, but ever revealed in 
every age to every man whose mind and heart 
is open to receive the sacred truth. No, this 
does not leave us drifting helplessly on the 
great unknown. It leaves us with our reason, 
which is the safest guide when upon the bound- 
less deep. Better to sail alone upon a shore- 
less sea, tossed by the waves of thought, drift- 
ing with the winds of truth, guided only by the 
stars of hope and reason than to be soothed to 
sleep by a siren 's song amid the rocks and 
breakers of a false belief. 



CHAPTER III. 

Revealed Religion 

or 

The Danger of Superhuman Authority 

Today is a day of progress. Old beliefs are 
passing away and new facts are taking their 
places. The indefinite and distorted image of 
truth, seen but dimly by our fathers through 
the gray mist of the intellectual dawn, has as- 
sumed a more definite and tangible form with 
the sunrise of reason. The crude arts, sciences, 
philosophies, and customs of our ancestors have 
fallen short of our desires, and we have ex- 
changed them for others better suited to our 
needs. The childish and superstitious religion 
of our sires, we have found inadequate to our 
spiritual demands, and we have modified it to 
harmonize with our growing ideals. The super- 
human origin and authority of the Bible, which 
was the foundation of that religion, we have 
found unreliable and unsafe ; and today we are 
replacing that foundation by one more ample 
and enduring. 

No other line of investigation is destined to 

have so far-reaching and beneficial an influence 

^on civilization and religion as the scientific 
4 



50 The Evolution of Religion 

criticism of that ancient and wonderful book. 
Yet no other study has been so stubbornly op- 
posed; no other advancement has been so bit- 
terly contested; no other tradition has re- 
sisted so stoutly the inevitable light of truth as 
this ancient superstition concerning the origin 
and authority of the Bible. In no other war- 
fare have so many great and good men fought 
alone and unaided the battles of human prog- 
ress while the masses have looked on, and 
jeered, condemned, and persecuted them. 

If we could only promulgate new truths with- 
out discrediting old and opposing beliefs, prog- 
ress would be rapid and easy. In matters of re- 
ligion this cannot be done. 

"The lover may 
Distrust the look that steals his soul away. 
The babe may cease to think that it can play 
With heaven's rainbow. Alchemists may doubt 
The shining gold their crucibles give out. 
But faith, fanatic faith, once wedded fast 
To some dear delusion hugs it to the last. ' ' 

Unfortunately, men will not forsake their old 
religious habitation even for a better until 
the old one is no longer satisfactory. Dissatis- 
faction with the present is the first step toward 
progress. For this reason liberal Christians 
and other advanced thinkers are compelled to 
devote much time to discrediting and destroy- 



Revealed Religion 51 

ing the old faiths. They must first uproot the 
weeds that the flowers may grow. They must 
first expose errors that the truth may be seen 
and recognized. They must first make the old 
temple of religion no longer tenable before the 
worshipers will build better and more grandly. 

This work of criticism and destruction is just 
as important as that of construction, and must 
come first. Yet the critic is often misjudged 
and condemned as an enemy of religion and of 
all that is good. Despite discouragements and 
persecutions, these apostles of truth have la- 
bored and suffered; they have condemned and 
constructed; they have enlarged and improved 
the temple of religion till those who have 
stopped to read the handwriting of progress on 
the walls of the temple have observed that the 
old conception of the Bible and religion is slow- 
ly but surely passing. 

The old belief that was almost universal for 
so many centuries was that in some mysterious 
and miraculous way, God wrote the Bible or 
caused it to be written. Not only the thoughts, 
but the exact words and even the punctuation 
marks were believed by many to be the direct 
dictation of the Holy Ghost. Consequently, any 
attempt to in any way change, correct or im- 
prove the Bible has always met with bitter op- 
position. 

About the middle of the seventeenth century, 



52 The Evolution of Religion 

Nikon, patriarch of the Russian Greek Church, 
called together the most learned and devout 
scholars to correct certain mistakes which, 
through ignorance and carelessness, had crept 
into the Sacred Writings. Straightway great 
masses of the people, led by the monks and 
priests, rose in revolt against those who pre- 
sumed to improve upon the Word of God. The 
name of Jesus had previously been misspelled, 
so this mistake was corrected. This led to the 
wildest fanaticism. The monks of the great 
convent of Solovetski, when they learned of 
the change, cried aloud in terror : ' ' Woe ! Woe ! 
What have you done with the Son of God!" 
and they closed the gates of their convent, and 
for seven years defied the powers of the Church 
and State until at last subdued by an imperial 
army. 

Not only was such belief in the literal inspira- 
tion of the Bible almost universal, but for long 
centuries people accepted this book as author- 
ity on every phase of human thought and activ- 
ity. St. Augustine, the greatest theologian pro- 
duced by the Church during the first thousand 
years of its existence, said: "Nothing is to be 
accepted save on the authority of the Scrip- 
tures, since greater is that authority than all 
the powers of the human mind." Bunyan said 
of the Bible : "Every book of it, every chapter 
of it, every word of it is the direct utterance of 



Revealed Religion 53 

the Most High." Cheever said: "The Bible 
does not contain the shadow of a shade of error 
from Genesis to Revelation." Nor were such 
beliefs confined to ancient times. Dr. Talmage 
said : "The Bible is either all true or all false." 
Eev. Moody said that, "unless every word and 
every syllable, from Genesis to Revelation, is 
true, we have no Bible, and we might as well 
gather together what we have been calling our 
Bibles and build a bonfire of them, and build a 
monument heaven-high to Voltaire and Paine." 
Sam Jones said: "I believe the Bible from 
cover to cover; I believe the whale swallowed 
Jonah, and if the Bible said that Jonah swal- 
lowed the whale, I would believe that too." 
Fortunately for us such blind belief is now much 
less common than it once was. 

I would not be understood as condemning the 
Bible when I say that such beliefs concerning it 
have been a detriment to true religion and to 
civilization. The Bible is a valuable book, one 
we could not well dispense with. The book 
itself is all right, but people's ideas about the 
book have often been very wrong. It is these 
bad beliefs about a good book which have been 
such a detriment to the world, and it is our 
duty to help correct them. 

Neither the Bible nor any other book can 
safely be clothed with superhuman authority. 
However good a book may be, its precepts may 



54 The Evolution of Religion 

be misunderstood, and then such authority be- 
comes a danger and a detriment. But if that 
book be the ancient traditions of a less enlight- 
ened people, and if much of it is written in 
parables and figurative language, and if many 
of its teachings are uncertain and apparently 
contradictory, then it becomes doubly danger- 
ous if clothed with superhuman authority. 
Then, too, a book of superhuman authority and 
uncertain meaning must have some one to inter- 
pret it to the less enlightened. However wise 
and good they may be, those who profess to be 
able to explain such writings may be wrong, 
in fact, they often disagree, but whether right 
or wrong, they naturally take unto themselves 
somewhat of authority. Hence the danger of 
believing in the superhuman authority of any 
book. The deplorable results of such beliefs are 
written on every page of history. 

The Chinese have a book which they believe 
to be of more than human authority. It teaches, 
among many good things, an undue reverence 
for the past. Following this superhuman dic- 
tum, China has looked to the past for her inspir- 
ation and ideals and, as a consequence, has ret- 
rograded from her ancient glory. In recent 
years, China has begun to question the author- 
ity of her ancient traditions, and now the dawn 
of a new civilization is breaking over the an- 
cient Empire. 



Revealed Religion 55 

The people of India have ancient writings 
which they consider of more than human au- 
thority. These writings contain many good 
things and some things which are not so good. 
Among the latter is the belief that the things of 
this life are of small importance, and that the 
most desirable thing is to renounce and be free 
from the bondage of the flesh. Following this 
supposedly superhuman teaching, these people 
have disregarded things physical until they, 
who were once the sages and the philosophers 
of the world, have retrograded to a race of 
slaves and mendicants. India's only hope of 
advancement lies in her ability to break from 
this authority of her past. 

The Mohammedans, too, have a book which 
they claim to be of more than human origin and 
authority. Like other sacred books, this one 
contains precepts both good and bad. Among 
the bad things, it teaches religious intolerance 
and the propogation of their faith by the sword. 
Following these mandates, which to them are of 
more than human authority, the Mohammedans 
have been baptised in a sea of blood. Today 
there are signs that Islam is breaking from the 
traditional authority of her book, and by plac- 
ing reason above that authority, is tending to a 
higher civilization. 

Likewise, the Mormons have sacred writings 
which they accept as of more than human origin 



56 The Evolution of Religion 

and authority. These writings contain some 
bad teachings among the good. They teach the 
sanctity of plural marriages. Following this 
doctrine, men who by nature are intelligent and 
law abiding citizens have become polygamists 
and outlaws. 

We, too, have a sacred book which our ances- 
tors have bequeathed to us as of more than 
human origin and authority. Like other sacred 
books, ours contains much that is good and some 
that is bad. Like the devotees of other sacred 
books, we have often been guided by the bad 
and have neglected the good our Bible contains, 
much to the disrepute of the book, much to the 
discredit of our religion, and much to the detri- 
ment of mankind. Let us reverently but fear- 
lessly review how their belief in the super- 
human authority of the Christian Bible has led 
our ancestors astray, that we may draw what 
good lessons we can from their bad mistakes. 

Primitive man saw stretching out before him 
the land and sea, broken only by the hills, the 
valleys, and the rugged coasts. Quite naturally 
he believed the earth to be a great flat plain. 
The men who wrote our Bible seem to have held 
this belief in common with the rest of mankind, 
for they wrote of the earth as if it were flat. 
They spoke of the firmament or heavens as if 
they were above the earth and supported by pil- 
lars. 



Revealed Religion 57 

When men began to observe and reason, they 
came to believe the earth was round, and that 
the so-called firmament or heavens were merely 
the space surrounding the earth on all sides. 
Those who accepted the authority of the book 
and who professed to be able to interpret its 
teachings protested against so flagrant a con- 
tradiction of the Word of God. They quoted 
from Revelation VII :1, which reads: "And 
after these things, I saw four angels standing 
on the four corners of the earth." Clearly, if 
the earth had four corners it could not be 
round. They quoted from Job XXVI :11 how 
i ■ The pillars of heaven trembled. ' ' They quoted 
from I Samuel II :8, which reads : "For the pil- 
lars of the earth are the Lord 's ; he hath set the 
world upon them. " These, and many other 
passages, they quoted from the Bible to prove 
that the new conception of the earth was wrong. 
Long and severe was the struggle between those 
who based their belief on observation and rea- 
son, and those who based theirs on the super- 
human authority of the book. The result we 
all know. Modern interpreters of the Bible 
now tell us that "the four corners of the earth" 
and the "pillars of heaven" are poetical or 
figurative language. Perhaps they are correct, 
but before science proved the rotundity of the 
earth, the interpreters all declared these pass- 
ages to be literally true; and they violently 



58 The Evolution of Religion 

opposed all attempts to advance or sustain any 
opposing theories. 

Those who believed in the rotundity of the 
earth quite naturally speculated as to the prob- 
ability of people living on the opposite side of 
it. Against such a supposition, the interpreters 
spoke in no uncertain tones. The Church 
Fathers, almost to a man, condemned such a 
theory as contrary to the Sacred Scriptures. 
Many of them doubted if one who believed this 
heresy could be saved. Numerous Bible pass- 
ages they quoted to disprove the theory, chief 
of which was Paul 's letter to the Romans X :18, 
which says of the disciples of Jesus, " Their 
sound went out into all the earth.' ' The inter- 
preters said as the gospel had gone into all the 
earth and had not gone to the people on the 
opposite side of it, then there could be no such 
people. Concerning the second coming of Christ 
they quoted Luke XXI :27, "And then shall 
they see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with 
power and great glory.' ' From this passage, 
they argued that there could be no people on 
the opposite side of the earth ; for if there were, 
they could not see the second coming of Christ. 
Matthew also tells how the Devil took Jesus 
up into a high mountain and showed him all 
the kingdoms of the earth. Clearly, no moun- 
tain could be high enough for one to see the 
opposite side of the earth from the top of it, so 
there could be no kingdoms there. 



Revealed Religion 59 

I would not presume to interpret these pass- 
ages; but on them and similar quotations from 
the Bible, such great churchmen as Eusebius, 
St. Augustine, St. Gregory, Pope Zachary, and 
many others denounced this new truth about 
the earth and its inhabitants as contrary to the 
Word of God. However, the voyages of Colum- 
bus and Magellan proved that the earth was 
round and that people did live on the other 
side of it. The believers in the superhuman 
authority of the book were then compelled to 
recede from their former position. This they 
did by explaining that these passages were only 
figurative and were not intended to be accepted 
as literal. They said that the Bible was not 
written as a text-book on geography anyway. 

We may not know which of these interpreta- 
tions is the correct one, but we do know that 
until science had discredited the ancient or 
literal interpretation, the modern or figurative 
one was never thought of. The effect of this 
ancient belief based on the superhuman author- 
ity of the Bible was far reaching both in its op- 
position to science and in the persecution of 
those who accepted her teachings. In the six- 
teenth century Michael Servetus brought out a 
new edition of Ptolmey's geography, in which 
the land of Judea was spoken of as a meager, 
barren, and inhospitable country. The Bibla 
speaks of this land as flowing with milk and 



60 The Evolution of Religion 

honey. Servetus was later tried as a heretic, 
and at his trial John Calvin, the founder of 
Calvinism, used this simple geographical state- 
ment of Servetus against him with fearful pow- 
er. Calvin said that such a statement was con- 
trary to the Word of God, that it necessarily 
inculpated Moses and grievously outraged the 
Holy Ghost. In vain did Servetus plead that 
he was merely quoting the words of Ptolmey, 
which were true as any one could see for him- 
self if he would but take the trouble to investi- 
gate. For two hours they roasted Servetus over 
a slow fire of green wood, while he begged his 
executioners in the name of their common God 
to pile on more fuel and end his awful agony. 

With the belief that the earth is round, came 
the theory that it is not the stationary center 
of the universe, but that it rotates on its axis 
and also revolves around the sun, the real cen- 
ter of the solar system. Copernicus, who made 
this great and epoch making discovery, well 
knew the danger of disputing the superhuman 
authority of the Bible and the Church, and not 
until after his death did his wonderful theory 
become known. Against this hypothesis were 
launched all the powers and invective of the 
Church, both Protestant and Catholic. Martin 
Luther said of Copernicus and his theory, 
* ' That fool wishes to reverse the entire science 
of astronomy, but the Sacred Scriptures tell us 



Revealed Religion 61 

that Joshua commanded the sun to stand still. ' ' 
Melanchthon cited passages from Psalms and 
Ecclesiastes which he declared asserted posi- 
tively that the earth stands fast and that the 
sun moves around it. He said : " It is a part of 
a good mind to accept the truth as revealed by 
God and to acquiesce to it." John Calvin con- 
demned all who dared say that the earth is not 
the stationary center of the universe. As proof 
of the correctness of his position, he quoted 
from the first verse of the Ninety-third Psalm, 
which reads: "The earth also is established 
that it cannot be moved," and he said: "Who 
will venture to place the authority of Coper- 
nicus above that of the Holy Spirit?" Even 
John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, said 
that this new discovery tended to infidelity. 

However, the interpreters of the Sacred Book 
were wrong again. With his telescope, Galileo 
not only proved the theory of Copernicus to be 
correct, but he also discovered in the starry 
vault many other worlds greater than our own. 
For thus daring to dispute the authority of the 
book and its interpreters, Galileo brought down 
on his head the condemnation of the clergy and 
the Church. He was denounced as an infidel 
and an atheist. The interpreters said the theory 
of other worlds than ours was of the Devil and 
directly contrary to the Scriptures. They said 
that if there are other words and these worlds 



62 The Evolution of Religion 

should prove to be inhabited, how could their 
inhabitants have descended from Noah and 
Adam, and how could they have heard of the 
death and resurrection of Jesus? Pope Paul V., 
the infallible head of an infallible Church and 
the official interpreter of the sacred book, sol- 
emnly decreed that, "The doctrine of the dou- 
ble motion of the earth about its axis and about 
the sun is false and entirely contrary to the 
Holy Scriptures. ' ' Accordingly, Galileo was 
imprisoned and tortured and made to recant 
that discovery for which he should have been 
crowned with honor. 

Among those who championed this new 
theory was the illustrious Giordano Bruno, and 
well did he pay for this and his other heresies. 
After being persecuted and imprisoned for 
years, he was tried as a heretic. His doctrine 
of a plurality of worlds was declared to be 
repugnant to the Scriptures and inimical to the 
plan of salvation. On refusing to recant, he 
was delivered to the authorities to be punished 
"as mercifully as possible and without the 
shedding of blood," which meant that he was to 
be burned alive at the stake. The sentence was 
executed in Rome in sight of the Vatican. A 
monument erected three hundred years after 
Bruno 's execution now stands in the shadow of 
St. Peter's Cathedral, a constant reminder to all 
mankind that superhuman authority is a dan- 
gerous thing. 



Revealed Religion 63 

But this question of the earth and its rela- 
tions to other planets was not to be settled by 
ecclesiastical decrees, by papal bulls, or burning 
fagots. New champions arose to defend the 
truth. Long and bitter was the conflict be- 
tween the champions of the book and the cham- 
pions of science. As usual, science won a com- 
plete victory. Despite the fact that the an- 
cient interpreters of the Bible, including Catho- 
lic bishops, archbishops, cardinals, and popes, 
including Calvin, Luther, Melanchthon, Wesley, 
and other leading Protestants, had one and all 
decreed that this new scientific theory of the 
universe was directly opposed to the teachings 
of the Word of God — despite all this, modern 
interpreters tell us that they are in perfect 
accord. They now tell us that the passages 
previously supposed to refer to the subject are 
figurative, and that the Bible is not supposed 
to be a text-book on astronomy anyway. 

We may not know whether the ancient or the 
modern interpretation of the book on this sub- 
ject is correct, but we do know that the belief 
that the Bible was of more than human author- 
ity was responsible for Bruno's being burned 
at the stake. It caused Galileo to be imprisoned 
and tortured, and brought down the condemna- 
tion of the Church, both Catholic and Protest- 
ant, upon the heads of Copernicus, Kepler, New- 
ton and many other devotees of truth, and de- 
layed the progress of science for centuries. 



64 The Evolution of Religion 

But it was not alone in geography and 
astronomy that the authority of the Bible was 
being questioned. Our fathers read in Genesis 
that the earth was made in six days and for 
more than a thousand years, they accepted this 
statement as literally true. The date at which 
this event took place was estimated by Bible 
chronologists to have been about six thousand 
years ago. Modern scientific study of the 
earth's surface and of the fossiliferous remains 
of animals has demonstrated that the earth is 
millions of years old instead of thousands, and 
that it was not made in six days, but was slowly 
evolved through countless ages. It was also 
demonstrated that lower forms of animal life 
lived and died before man appeared on the 
earth. 

The danger of such teachings was at once 
apparent to those who maintained the super- 
human authority of the book. If animals lived 
and died before the time of Adam, how could 
sin and death have come into the world as a 
result of Adam's transgression? Upon this new 
geological teaching, such eminent Protestant 
authorities as John Wesley, Bishop Watson, 
Adam Clark, and many lesser lights set the seal 
of their disapproval as being contrary to the 
explicit teachings of the Bible. But science 
progressed as usual, and those who accepted the 
authority of Genesis were under the painful 
uecessity of reconciling it with geology. 



Revealed Religion 65 

Various attempts were made to harmonize the 
two. The most plausible and popular explana- 
tion was the one advanced by Gladstone. He 
said that the six days of Genesis were not six 
days of twenty-four hours, but were merely 
six periods of time. Huxley, in his memorable 
reply to Gladstone, conclusively demonstrated 
that the order of creation as told in Genesis can 
not be reconciled with the teachings of geol- 
ogy even though the six days be considered as 
six indefinite periods of time. That Gladstone's 
interpretation of Genesis, which has since been 
so widely accepted by clergy and laity, was 
born of necessity, and was not the natural ren- 
dering of the account is evidenced by the fact 
that no one ever advanced such a meaning until 
science made the old one no longer tenable. 
Replying on the groundless supposition that the 
author of Genesis did not mean what he said, 
and did not say what he meant, there are yet 
many who profess to be able to see no dis- 
agreement between the story of creation as 
told in the Bible and that told by science. 
They see nothing unreasonable in the account 
that there was light and darkness, evening and 
morning, day and night with plant life exist- 
ing before the sun was made on the fourth day. 

After so many irrational and futile attempts 
of the reconcilers to preserve the scientific cred- 
ibility of Genesis, it is refreshing and encourag- 

5 



66 The Evolution of Religion 

ing to hear such an eminent churchman and 
theologian as Canon Driver say: "From all 
that has been said, however reluctant we may 
be to make the admission, only one conclusion 
seems possible, — read without prejudice or bias 
the narrative of Genesis creates an impression 
at variance with the facts revealed by science.' ' 
Dean Stanley is even more emphatic, for he tells 
us that the various efforts to twist the early 
chapters of Genesis into apparent agreement 
with the teachings of geology have totally and 
deservedly failed. Professors Oort and Hooy- 
kas, two eminent Dutch scholars and theo- 
logians, tell us that, "as a scientific product 
the narrative (Genesis) has no value. A mod- 
erately good schoolboy in our day can easily 
point out the writer's mistakes." Eecognizing 
these contradictions, it is not uncommon now to 
hear the Bible account of the beginning of the 
world referred to as a myth or song of creation. 
We may not know if the author of this book 
spoke figuratively or literally when he told how 
the world was made, but we do know that be- 
cause the interpreters believed the story to be 
literally true and of more than human author- 
ity, they bitterly opposed the advancement of 
learning and persecuted those who could not 
accept their interpretation. 

About this time there was also laid the found- 
ation of pother branch pf learning, which yet 



Revealed Religion 67 

further discredited the superhuman authority 
of the book and widened still more the breach 
between science and revealed religion. The 
theory that the higher forms of animal life, in- 
cluding man, had been evolved from lower 
forms, met much hostile opposition from those 
who held the book to be the final authority on 
the origin of man. The orthodox world, both 
lay and ecclesiastical, with a chorus almost 
unanimous, condemned the theory of evolution 
as a doctrine of the Devil, contrary to the em- 
phatic teachings of the Bible, and opposed to 
the essentials of salvation. The infallible pope 
condemned as an "aberration" this teaching of 
Darwin. This new heresy struck right at the 
heart of Christian dogma. If man had evolved 
from lower forms of animal life, then he was not 
created in the image of God and had not fallen 
from a high state of original perfection. If 
there was no fall of man, there was no occasion 
for a redemption and no need of a redeemer. 
Thus, the theory of evolution disputed the 
whole orthodox plan of salvation, and it is not 
surprising that the believers in the authority 
of the Bible opposed this new discovery. 

But despite the supposed authority of the 
book, the condemnation of the pope, and the 
opposition of the Church, the thinking world 
has gradually come to believe the doctrine of 
^volution, TP&ay it is accepted by practically 



68 The Evolution of Religion 

all scientific minds. The reconcilers now tell us 
that this new discovery is in no wise contrary 
to the teachings of Holy Writ, for, as usual, 
they have found that the book does not mean 
just what it says and does not say just what it 
means. Then, too, they tell us the Bible was 
not written as a text-book on anthropology any- 
way. 

Students also early discovered that an ark of 
the size described in the Bible would accommo- 
date only a small part of the animals it is said 
to have held, to say nothing about the immense 
quantity of food necessary to sustain them dur- 
ing the long period they were on the water. 
The reconcilers tried hard to explain away 
these difficulties. Some suggested that a cubit 
in those days was more than a cubit is now. 
Some suggested that God put all the animals 
into a deep sleep so they would need no food. 
The question of how land animals reached 
the islands of the sea after the water subsided 
also demanded an explanation. The versatile 
St. Augustine explained this by suggesting that 
they were transported thither by angels. An- 
tiquarians and comparative mythologists have 
now conclusively demonstrated that the account 
of creation, the story of Adam, and the history 
of Noah and the flood are old Chaldean and 
Babylonian myths and legends adopted by the 
Hebrews and transmitted as their own, They 



Revealed Religion 69 

have also discovered that man inhabited this 
earth long before the supposed time of Adam. 

Scientific investigation has also discredited 
the story of the ingenious people of Babel, who 
built a tower so high that even God was afraid 
that they would carry out their design and 
reach heaven, so he came down and confused 
their tongues that they might not understand 
each other and could not finish the tower. This 
is the superhuman explanation of how the dif- 
ferent languages originated. The God who in- 
spired that story seems not to have had a very 
accurate idea of the location of heaven and its 
distance from the earth. We know now that 
this story, like many others in the Bible, was a 
legend borrowed by the Chosen People. The 
study of philology has demonstrated that the 
different languages did not originate in the 
manner described in this story. 

After these and numerous other conflicts be* 
tween science and the Bible, in all of which the 
latter came out shorn of some of its authority, 
the reconcilers and apologists discovered that 
the book was not intended as a text-book on 
scientific subjects but was an authority only on 
moral, spiritual, and superhuman things. Sci- 
ence has also had somewhat to say on things 
superphysical and in this field she has disputed 
the authority of many teachings in the book. 

One of the prominent teachings in both the 



70 The Evolution of Religion 

Old Testament and the New Testament is that 
of obsession, or that demons and devils fre- 
quently inhabit human beings, and thus pro- 
duce various forms of disease. This belief, 
which was almost universal in their day, was 
accepted by Jesus and his disciples, who often 
cast these evil spirits out of those possessed. 
Out of one woman Jesus is said to have cast 
seven of these devils. Out of two lunatics he 
cast a number of devils, which by his permission 
entered a herd of swine. Believing that disease 
was due to demonical possession, the priests and 
the Church quite naturally devised ecclesiastical 
formulae for getting rid of these aforesaid dev- 
ils. Numerous were the methods employed to 
attain that end. The evil spirit was comj- 
manded in the name of Jesus to come out. If 
that was not sufficient, and it usually was not, 
other and severer measures were employed. 
Physical torture was often resorted to in the 
belief that by thus punishing the unwelcome 
guest, he would depart and return no more. If 
exorcism, imprisonment, and torture did not 
cure the afflicted, as a last resort, they were 
often burned alive at the stake. After all, was 
not fire the logical weapon to use against the 
devil ? 

In accordance with this ancient belief, sanc- 
tioned by the superhuman authority of the 
Bible, for centuries patients afflicted with such 



Revealed Religion 71 

nervous and mental diseases, as hysteria, epi- 
lepsy, insanity, and idiocy were subjected to the 
most revolting treatment, including death at 
the stake. We have no reliable statistics of the 
thousands of physically and mentally defective 
who suffered punishment and even death as a 
result of the old superstition that devils pro- 
duce disease. Both laity and clergy accepted 
this belief as in perfect accord with Divine Rev- 
elation. Protestant leaders were no less loyal 
to the literal interpretation of these teachings 
of Holy Writ than were the Catholics. John 
Calvin, Martin Luther, John Wesley, and many 
lesser lights persistently and conscientiously de- 
fended the theory of demonical possession. 

A similar belief which prevailed among our 
ancestors was that plagues and epidemics were 
a direct punishment from an angry God, or were 
the works of the Devil. Such teachings find 
ample authority in the Bible; and until recent 
years, were supported by the universal Church. 
As a result, plagues and epidemics were treated 
by prayers and holy water, by charms and non- 
material measures. Supporting their beliefs by 
the teachings of a superhuman book, its votaries 
persistently opposed hygiene, sanitation, and 
preventive and curative medicine as attempts 
to thwart the will of God. Scientific investiga- 
tion has now amply demonstrated that physi- 
cal and mental infirmities are not due to devils, 



^2 The Evolution of Religion 

but to physical and mental causes, and that 
plagues and epidemics are due to neither dei- 
ties or devils, but to poor hygiene and sanita- 
tion. The Bible is now no longer an authority 
on the practice of medicine as it once was. 

Another ancient superstition distinctly sanc- 
tioned by this book is witchcraft, or the unholy 
alliance of a human being with the Devil for 
evil purposes. (See Acts VIII :9 ; Acts XVI :16 ; 
I Sam. XXVIII :3 3 I Sam. XV :23 ; Lev. XX :27 ; 
Micah V:12; II Chron. XXXIII :6.) Concern- 
ing witchcraft and its deserved punishment, 
the teachings of the Scriptures seem clear 
and decisive. Exodus (XXII :18) reads, "Thou 
shall not suffer a witch to live." Many other 
passages in both the Old and New Testament 
breathe the same authority for witchcraft and 
its punishment. 

The reality of witchcraft was valiantly de- 
fended by the leaders of the Church. Pope 
Innocent VIII only expressed the universal sen- 
timent of Christendom when he issued his fam- 
ous bull exorting the clergy to leave no means 
untried to detect sorcerers and especially those 
who by evil weathers destroyed vineyards, gar- 
dens, meadows, and growing crops. The Prot- 
estants were no less energetic than were the 
Catholics in trying to suppress this imaginary 
evil. John Calvin, Martin Luther, the Mathers, 
and John Wesley stood firmly with Rome in 



Revealed Religion 73 

this matter. Wesley said: "The giving up of 
witchcraft is in effect the giving up of the 
Bible.' ' 

Following the explicit teachings of this book, 
which was to them of more than human authori- 
ty, its advocates permitted and committed atro- 
cities against innocent men, women, and chil- 
dren, which are without a parallel in the history 
of the world. The delusion spread from the 
Continent to the British Isles and then crossed 
the sea to our own fair America. For cen- 
turies, all over Christendom, innocents were 
sacrificed to superhuman authority on the al- 
tars of ignorance and superstition. So wide- 
spread and numerous were these executions 
that Macay says, in France, about A. D. 1520, 
the fires for the execution of witches burned in 
almost every town. In one township there was 
not a family that had not lost at least one mem- 
ber burned as a witch. In all, some three hun- 
dred thousand human beings were executed 
and untold thousands were punished in a lesser 
degree. We of a later day and a more scientific 
age reject the authority of the Bible concern- 
ing witchcraft. 

But as unfortunate and appalling as were 
the results of the Bible teachings concerning 
this delusion, they are mild and insignificant 
compared with the doctrine of religious intol- 
erance and persecution which our ancestors 



74 The Evolution of Religion 

drew from this same sacred book. From the 
thirteenth chapter of ODeuteronomy, they read, 
"If thy brother, the sjon of thy mother, or thy 
daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy 
friend which is as thine own soul shall entice 
thee secretly saying, 'Let us go and worship 
other Gods ' * * * thou shall surely kill him ; 
thy hand shall be the first upon him to put him 
to death.' ' In the ninth verse of the first chap- 
ter of Galatians, they read: "If any man 
preach any other gospel unto you than that ye 
have received, let him be accursed." 

Such precepts from this supposedly super- 
human book have probably been the cause of 
more suffering and cruelty than any other fiat 
that ever fell from the lips of gods or men. 
Complying with these mandates, the Inquisi- 
tion imprisoned, tortured, robbed, and killed 
hundreds of thousands of Jews, Protestants, 
and Mohammedans because, in the words 
ascribed to Paul, they taught a doctrine differ- 
ent from that which they had received. Words 
are inadequate to describe the inhumanities of 
the Church to the unorthodox and even to many 
sound in the faith. The number of victims of 
the Inquisition is very uncertain. Draper says 
between the years 1481 and 1808 A. D., the In- 
quisition punished three hundred and forty 
thousand persons, and of this number, thirty- 
two thousand were burned alive at the stake. 



Revealed Religion 75 

This goodly number does not include the much 
greater number who were killed in the wars 
precipitated by the attempts to fasten the In- 
quisition on such other countries as Germany 
and The Netherlands; neither does it include 
the unnumbered thousands who by flight es- 
caped punishment and death. Hugo estimates 
the total number of victims of the Inquisition 
at five million. 

But religious persecutions were not confined 
to the Church of Eome. Both branches of the 
Christian Church accepted as authority the 
same Bible, hence the Protestants breathed the 
same spirit of intolerance that characterized 
the mother Church. Being less numerous and 
powerful, the Protestants naturally have fewer 
crimes charged to their account. Martin Luther 
asserted the right to punish heresy. John Knox 
appealed to the Old Testament to support his 
contention that those who were guilty of idola- 
try might justly be put to death, John Calvin 
believed in punishing heretics. He had Ser- 
vetus burned at the stake and wrote a book in 
defense of religious persecution. The Protest- 
ants not only retaliated upon the Catholics, but 
they perpetrated the most fiendish cruelties 
upon the Quakers, the Puritans, the Anabap- 
tists, the Unitarians, and other Protestant 
bodies who differed from them in religious be- 
lief. In Great Britain, Ireland, and Holland, 



76 The Evolution of Religion 

the spirit of Protestant intolerance was most 
manifest, though it was not wanting even in 
our own America. We have no reliable statis- 
tics of the thousands killed as a result of Prot- 
estant intolerance or of the tens of thousands 
punished in other ways. 

The unnumbered host of human beings di- 
rectly sacrificed to religious intolerance on the 
authority of the Bible are but a handful to the 
millions that perished in the religious massacres 
and wars, and the Crusades, all of which were 
either a direct or an indirect result of the be- 
lief in a superhuman authority. 

And so we might continue at great length 
showing how this supposedly superhuman book 
sanctions slavery and polygamy, and how it has 
often been advanced in defense of intemper- 
ance, and to assist the hands of kings and des- 
pots against the common people. But enough 
of these saddening tales of a darker day. We 
speak of them not to ridicule religion, but to 
defend her fair name against those who have 
ignorantly defamed her. We recall these things 
not to condemn those who participated in these 
depredations, but to excuse them. They fol- 
lowed the light as they saw the light. They be- 
lieved in the superhuman authority of an an- 
cient book, and they blindly tried to follow its 
behests. We cite these things to show that a 
superhuman authority is a dangerous thing, is 



Revealed Religion 77 

an enemy of civilization, and is a detriment to 
the spirit of true religion. 

Looking backward some two thousand years, 
we see dotting the shores of the Mediterranean 
Sea people who, with the rise of science and 
reason, had broken from the traditions and 
superstitions of their past and had built up 
civilizations, the light of which still glints and 
glimmers for us across the darkness of the in- 
tervening centuries. Then appeared among 
these people a book said to be of more than 
human origin and authority. "With the spread 
of that belief human observation and reason 
became unnecessary and unsafe. Under the in- 
fluence of that belief and the persecutions it 
entailed, the arts, the sciences and the philoso- 
phies of Egypt, Greece, and Eome were sup- 
pressed and the twilight of the Dark Ages came 
on apace. "The profound philosophies of Plato 
and of Aristotle were degraded to conform to 
the theological vagaries of St. Augustine. Egypt 
exchanged the great men who had made her 
Museum and Library immortal for a band of 
solitary monks and sequestered virgins." In 
sunny Spain the Moorish civilization made way 
for the superstitions, intolerance, and persecu- 
tions of mediocrity. From Eome, where once 
religious tolerance held her peaceful sway, went 
forth the edicts of the Inquisition, and Chris- 
tendom sacrificed as heretics her wisest an<J 



78 The Evolution of Religion 

her best. Where once investigation was en- 
couraged, now to think was infidelity, and to 
question was to die. When the Church and 
book were most authoritative, the midnight of 
the Dark Ages was at hand and the spirit of true 
religion was dead. The burning fagot round 
the dying heretic was the only light that broke 
the gloom. 

Then people began to think and question the 
authority of the past. The discoveries of Co- 
lumbus, Magellan, Copernicus, Galileo, and 
other thinkers did much to shake the old belief 
in the authority of the Bible. Then came Luther, 
Calvin, Melanchthon, Knox, and other leaders 
of the Reformation. They denied the authority 
of the Church and questioned that of certain 
parts of the book. Others followed the exam- 
ple of these leaders and began to read and 
think, to investigate and interpret, to accept 
and reject the Sacred Writings according to 
the dictates of their reason and conscience. 
From that day, when people began to read the 
Bible in the light of reason, its authority has 
gradually lessened and its usefulness has in- 
creased. Just as people have questioned and 
discarded superhuman authority, they have ad- 
vanced in science, in civilization, and in true 
religion. In Christendom today, those countries 
are least advanced who believe most in the 
superhuman authority of the book and the 



Revealed Religion 79 

Church, and those countries are the most en- 
lightened where the people place reason above 
superhuman authority and accept as literally- 
true only such parts of the Bible as are in 
accord with science. In Germany, Holland, 
France, Great Britain, and our own America, 
we see civilization and religion at their best, 
and in no other countries is there so much liber- 
ty of thought and freedom from religious au- 
thority. 

To such a point has reason superseded au- 
thority in religion in these highly civilized coun- 
tries that a good orthodox Christian may doubt 
the accuracy and the literal interpretation of 
practically all the Bible excepting the miracu- 
lous birth, deity, and mission of Jesus. All the 
other improbabilities in the book we may call 
figurative, or otherwise explain away, or ignore. 
The significance of this fact is apparently un- 
recognized by the average churchman. If the 
story of creation as told in Genesis is figurative, 
then are not Adam and the fall of man also 
figurative ? If there was no actual fall of man, 
what real need is there for a redeemer and are 
not the Christ and the plan of salvation unreal ? 
If we no longer accept as true the story that 
Eve had no human mother, then why do we 
still accept the story that Jesus had no human 
father? If we class as a myth the story that 
Samson slew a thousand men with tjie jawbone 



80 The Evolution of Religion 

of an ass, why do we still accept as true the 
more improbable story that Jesus fed more than 
five thousand men with five loaves and two 
fishes? If we doubt that the widow's son was 
raised from the dead by Elijah, why believe 
that Lazarus was raised from the dead by 
Jesus? If we disbelieve that Jonah was three 
days in the whale's belly and came out alive, 
why do we believe that Jesus was dead and in 
the tomb three days and then came forth alive? 
If we doubt that Elijah was caught up into 
heaven in a chariot of fire, why believe that 
Jesus ascended to heaven in a cloud? Are not 
all of these strange and improbable stories told 
in the same book and on the same authority? 
Can any one tell why we should reject one and 
accept another? 

If we once admit that reason and observation 
are superior to ancient tradition and authority, 
where can we stop? The human mind can not 
serve both reason and authority ; for when they 
conflict, she will forsake the one and cling to 
the other. The present position of orthodoxy, 
which is an attempt at compromise between the 
two, can not be long maintained. We must 
choose which we will serve. Between science 
and the superhuman origin and authority of 
the Bible, there is an impassible and ever widen- 
ing gulf which the reconcilers of the old faith 
have vainly tried to bridge. But why these per- 



Revealed Religion 81 

sistent attempts to reconcile the Bible and sci- 
ence? If the Bible is authority, what matters 
it that science and reason disagree with it? If 
the Bible is not authority, then why distort its 
teachings in a vain attempt to make it harmo- 
nize with them? The Bible or other sacred 
books may contain much that is good, much 
that is helpful, much that is inspiring ; but they 
can have no authority that is binding. Their 
teachings we must accept for their intrinsic 
value and not because of any traditional origin. 

There are many good, sincere Christians to 
whom the passing of the old faith and the com- 
ing of the new will bring much anguish and 
forebodings of impending evil. Many of these 
anxious souls are already crying with the Solo- 
vetski monks, "Woe, Woe! What have you 
done with the Son of God ? " Many are already 
crying, "You have taken away our Bible and 
our religion and have given us nothing in re- 
turn." No notion could be farther from the 
truth. Science has taken from the Bible and 
from religion only that which was a detriment 
to both. All that was good or true is still ours. 

Science has taken nothing that she has not 
returned an hundred fold. She has taken away 
the cosmogony of Genesis and has given us as- 
tronomy and geology. She has taken away the 
creation of man and has given us his evolution. 
She has taken away the fall of man and has 



82 The Evolution of Religion 

given us his eternal. progress. She has taken 
away the story of Babel and has given us phil- 
ology. She has taken away miracles and has 
given us natural law and order. She has taken 
away superstition and ignorance and has given 
us reason and education. She has taken the 
false halo of deity from the brow of Jesus and 
has crowned him with divine humanity. She 
has taken away the authority of revealed re- 
ligion, with all the dangers and disadvantages 
it entails, and has given us a rational and ever- 
growing religion, embodying all that was good 
in the old faiths, yet in complete harmony with 
all the learning of today, and in perfect sym- 
pathy with whatever progress the future may 
bring. 

But the work of science is not yet finished. 
The dogmatic walls of the old faith must be 
torn down, for they cumber the ground where 
the edifice of a greater religion is being built. 
Already the foundations are laid, and on them 
the spiritual architects are building, better and 
grander than the world has ever known, a tem- 
ple of universal religion. No narrow creed 
shall bar the sacred portals of that temple, but 
her doors shall ever open stand to all who seek 
the truth. Within her sacred walls the de- 
votees of every faith may worship in security. 
No cup of hemlock there shall still the philo- 
sophic tongue. No crown of thorns shall there 



Revealed Religion 83 

adorn the brow of innocents. No burning fag- 
ots shall there await the doubting mind. No 
voice shall there command except the still, 
small voice of reason. On the sacred altar of 
this temple will rest the Bible, and every other 
book that has inspired the heavy heart of man. 
There the lowly Nazarene will be revered, and 
so will every other Son of God who has helped 
to ease the burdens of the world. The Holy 
Mother Mary will be adored, as will every 
woman who has played the sacred role of 
motherhood. Guided by the stars of hope and 
love, wise men from the east and from the west 
will lay their treasure at the feet of every new 
born babe and welcome it to a world of brother- 
hood, while all the worshipers join the strain 
pf Peace on earth, good will to men ? 



CHAPTER IV. 

The Evolution of The Trinity 

or 

How Jesus Became a God 

Broadly speaking, the Christian World may- 
be divided into two classes, Trinitarians and 
Unitarians. The Trinitarians, or the so-called 
orthodox Christians, are by far the more num- 
erous, including practically all the Christian 
denominations excepting the Unitarian Asso- 
ciation, the Universalists, and some of the 
Quakers. Unitarians are those who believe in 
a first cause, or God existing as a unity. Trini- 
tarians are those who believe in a first cause, 
or God existing as a trinity, or as a God-head 
of three persons — God the Father, God the Son, 
and God the Holy Ghost — one of which persons, 
God the Son, was born as a human being of a 
virgin woman, without the aid of a human 
father, and lived some thirty-odd years as Jesus 
the Jew, finally being crucified by the Jews. 

The doctrine of a Supreme God manifesting 
as a trinity, or as three persons, was not origi- 
nal with Christianity, but is a more or less 
prominent teaching in most of the world 's great 



The Evolution of the Trinity 85 

religions. We must not on that account con- 
found the triune gods of these other religions 
with that of Christianity, for they are essen- 
tially different. The Christian dogma of the 
Trinity emphasizes the claim that the man 
Jesus is one of the three persons of the God- 
head, a claim which differentiates the Christian 
Trinity from that of all other religions. This 
dogma of the miraculous conception and deity 
of Jesus is a distinct and fundamental doctrine 
of orthodox Christianity. 

Here let me emphasize that Unitarians make 
a distinction between divinity and deity which 
is not ordinarily observed by Trinitarians. 
When Unitarians speak of "the divine" or of 
1 i divinity, ' ' they mean God-like, of the nature 
of God, or very good; but they do not mean 
God. When they refer to the Supreme or to 
God they say "Deity." Thus they believe in 
the divinity of Jesus, i. e. they believe he was 
God-like, of the nature of God, or very good. 
They also believe in the divinity of all mankind, 
holding that all men are in a measure like unto 
God, or of the nature of God, and that the dif- 
ference in the divinity of Jesus and that of 
mankind in general is a difference in degree, 
and not in kind. Unitarians hold that Jesus 
was more divine than we are, because he lived 
closer to God or to the good than we live ; and 
they hold that we, top, may attain a divinity 



86 The Evolution of Religion 

like unto him by following his example and 
leading the life he lead. Consequently, Uni- 
tarians, though believing in the divinity of 
Jesus, do not accept the dogma of his deity, or 
that he was God, or a part of God in the ordi- 
nary orthodox meaning of the word. 

It is the growth or evolution of the orthodox 
Trinity that we would trace from the ancient 
Hebrew belief in one God to the modern Trini- 
tarian doctrine which is apparently three Gods. 
"We would trace it from the time when Moses 
cried, "Hear, Israel, the Lord our God is one 
Lord/' to the fully developed doctrine which 
says, "We worship one God in trinity, and trin- 
ity in unity, neither confounding the persons 
nor dividing the substance; for there is one 
person of the Father, another of the Son, and 
another of the Holy Ghost; but the God-head 
of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy 
Ghost is all one; the glory equal; the majesty 
eternal." Take notice, "We must not con- 
found the persons nor divide the substance,' ' 
i. e., we must remember that there are three of 
these persons, and yet we must not forget that 
there is only one. 

Just what Trinitarians mean by a God-head 
of three persons that are all co-equal, all co- 
eternal, and yet, all one has never been settled 
by them. They usually protest most emphatic- 
ally against having the word "person* ' inter- 



The Evolution of the Trinity 87 

preted to mean person, though they refrain 
from telling us just what it really does mean. 
They sometimes suggest that person may mean 
manifestation, or spiritual activity, or some 
other vague and indefinite something, equally 
as meaningless and incomprehensible as the 
thing they are trying to define. While Trini- 
tarians do not presume to expound or ex- 
plain this mysterious doctrine of a God-head 
of three persons that are all one, yet they do 
presume to say that belief in this dogma is es- 
sential to salvation, and they do make such be- 
lief a requisite for Christian fellowship with 
them. If a belief in this doctrine is desirable 
or essential, we should have some knowledge 
of what these three persons or somethings are, 
so that we may know what we are expected to 
believe ; yet any attempt to analyze or compre- 
hend this fundamental doctrine of orthodoxy 
leads us to the most absurd and impossible con- 
clusions. 

To illustrate: the Trinitarian creeds tell us 
that these three persons or somethings are all 
equal and all one. If they are all equal and all 
one, then any definition or description of any 
one of them should also apply to the other two. 
Now, we are told that one of these somethings, 
God the Son, was born of a woman and had a 
human form like unto other men. He also 
apparently had all the organs, functions, and 



88 The Evolution of Religion 

faculties common to other men. He apparent- 
ly possessed all that is required to make one 
an entity or separate person. If not, in what 
was he deficient that is essential to personali- 
ty? Are we not justified in considering Jesus 
a person in the ordinary, every-day meaning of 
the word? 

If Jesus was not a separate person or entity, 
not to be confounded with the other two per- 
sons of the Trinity, when he prayed, "Father 
let this cup pass," was he not praying to him- 
self? When he cried, "My God! My God! 
Why hast thou forsaken me?" was he not ask- 
ing himself why he had forsaken himself? 
When he said, "Father, into thy hands I com- 
mend my spirit/ ' was he not commending his 
spirit into his own hands? Thes.e and many 
other statements attributed to him would seem 
to prove beyond cavil that Jesus, the Second 
Person of the orthodox God-head or Trinity, 
was a separate person or entity in the common, 
every-day meaning of the word; a separate 
person not to be confounded with the other 
persons of the Trinity. That Jesus was con- 
sidered a separate and distinct person is ap- 
parently clearly shown by the account of the 
martyrdom of Stephen. The Acts VII :56 says, 
Stephen looked up into heaven and saw "Jesus 
standing on the right hand of God." 

If Jesus, one of these three persons or some- 



The Evolution of the Trinity 89 

things of the Trinity, was a separate person or 
entity in the ordinary meaning of the word, 
and if all three of these somethings or persons 
are equal, then are not all three of them sepa- 
rate entities or persons in the ordinary mean- 
ing of the word ? If we have three separate en- 
tities or persons in the God-head, have we not 
three separate Gods? Or does it take three 
separate persons to make one God? It would 
appear that the orthodox God-head or Trinity 
is a corporation of three Gods, and that instead 
of one God, Trinitarians really have three of 
them ; yet they protest vehemently against any 
such implication. 

That there are three somethings in the Trini- 
ty, all Trinitarians are agreed. They are also 
agreed that these three somethings are all one. 
They affirm that God the Father, God the Son, 
and God the Holy Ghost are all one God. If 
these three are all one, then it would seem that 
three Gods make one God, and one God makes 
three Gods. Three times one is one, and once 
three is one, — a mathematical and logical ab- 
surdity that we are expected to believe. Con- 
tinuing, the creeds say that these three persons 
or somethings which are all one, are all co- 
equal, and all co-eternal. That is, I take it, that 
being co-equal, no one of these three is either 
greater or less than the other two ; and that be- 
ing co-eternal, no one of these three existed be- 



90 The Evolution of Religion 

fore the other two, for there was never a time 
when all three did not exist. Now the mystery- 
deepens ; for we are told that God the Son, one 
of these three eternal somethings which are all 
equal and have always existed, was conceived 
of one of the other two, God the Holy Ghost, 
and thereby became the Son of the third eter- 
nal something, God the Father, and of a virgin 
woman named Mary. If these three somethings 
are all co-equal and all co-eternal, how could 
one of them be conceived of one of the other 
two, and thereby become the son of the third 
eternal something? Yet this is what we are 
asked to believe. 

If Jesus, or God the Son, one of these three 
persons or somethings of the Trinity, was con- 
ceived by one of the three, and these three are 
all one, then was not Jesus conceived of him- 
self, and of the other two also? And was not 
each one of these three persons conceived of 
the other two and of himself as well ? Further- 
more, if these three somethings are all one of 
which we must not divide the substance, and 
if one of these three was born of a virgin, were 
not all three of them born of this virgin? If 
not, why not? Furthermore, if one of these 
three persons or somethings was conceived by 
one of the other two somethings of the Trinity, 
was there then but two persons or somethings 
in the God-head before this third something 



The Evolution of the Trinity 91 

was conceived? If God and the God-head are 
one, was there then no God before this concep- 
tion took place? 

But the mystery becomes even more incom- 
prehensible. The creeds further tell us that 
that person or something of the God-head which 
was born of a woman and lived as a man, was 
crucified, dead, and buried. If these three per- 
sons or somethings of the Trinity were all one 
of an undividable substance, and if one of them 
suffered and died, did not all three of them 
suffer and die also? If one of them was dead 
and buried, were not all three of them dead 
and buried ? and was there then no God for the 
three days during which they were dead? 

The above outline of sequence and conclu- 
sions, which are logical deductions from the 
premises, are given not to ridicule anyone's re- 
ligious belief, but to show the absurdity of at- 
tempting to formulate any dogma about the un- 
known and the unknowable; to show the folly 
of attempting to make this or any other dogma 
a fundamental of religion or a requisite of fel- 
lowship; to show the injustice of attempting 
to promote its acceptance by threat of Hell or 
hope of Paradise. 

This mathematical and logical absurdity of 
trying to make one God into three separate 
persons or Gods and still have only one God, 
has ever been a glory to the faithful, a stum- 



92 The Evolution of Religion 

bling-block to the doubter, and a joke to the 
disbeliever. The attempts made to explain this 
paradoxical conundrum has resulted in some of 
the most fickle fancies, some of the queerest 
quibbling, and some of the most subtle sophis- 
try that has ever muddled the mind of mortal 
man. Yet around this dogma have grown the 
creeds of Christendom. It is considered the 
boundary line between orthodoxy and unortho- 
doxy, between Christianity and infidelity. Be- 
lief in this dogma is required by the orthodox 
for fellowship with them, and is held by them 
as essential to salvation. That this dogma of 
the trinity of God and the deity of Jesus is 
still the theological center of orthodox Chris- 
tianity is well demonstrated by the fact that at 
the general convention of Christian denomina- 
tions held in New York in 1905 A. D. the dele- 
gates of the Unitarian Church were denied ad- 
mission on account of their disbelief in this 
dogma. At that recent date, American ortho- 
doxy placed itself on record before the world 
as holding that belief in the trinity of God and 
the deity of Jesus is essential to salvation and 
Christian fellowship. 

If belief in this or any other dogma is con- 
sidered by the majority as a test for Chris- 
tian fellowship and a passport to happiness 
hereafter, it behooves us who are weak in the 
faith to look well to the foundations of our dis- 



The Evolution of the Trinity 93 

belief, ere we exclude ourselves from their fel- 
lowship in this world, and perchance from sal- 
vation in a world to come. Each one of us 
must decide this question for himself. Not as 
a philosopher, nor as a theologian, but as a lay- 
man, must each one of us determine if he will 
or will not, or rather, if he can or cannot be- 
lieve. Let us, therefore, without bias or preju- 
dice, weigh the theories and evidence offered in 
support of this mysterious doctrine and see if 
they are sufficient to justify us, as rational be- 
ings, in making this dogma a part of our faith. 
The claim that God, or the Supreme, exists 
as a trinity is a purely speculative assumption 
that can neither be proven nor disproven any 
more than could a similar assumption that God 
exists as a duality or a quadrinity. The exist- 
ence or condition of the existence of a god or 
gods does not come within the realm of human 
experience or consciousness, and so can not be 
a matter of knowledge to us, at least in our 
present stage of evolution. However, when it 
is claimed that one of the three persons of the 
Trinity was a human being like unto other men, 
we are then no longer in the realm of abstract 
speculation, but we are confronted with con- 
crete facts, facts which come within the realm 
of human experience, and can and should be 
judged accordingly. In considering the evi- 
dence offered in support of the dogma of the 



94 The Evolution of Religion 

Trinity, we will therefore devote our attention 
in particular to that person of the God-head 
alleged to have been Jesus the Jew, for of that 
part, and that alone, can we know aught. 

Eealizing the unusual, unnatural, and irra- 
tional nature of the claim that the Supreme 
God of the universe was for years a simple 
fatherless Jew, its advocates have tried to ex- 
plain this extraordinary assertion by falling 
back on the asserted omnipotence of their God. 
They affirm that an all-powerful and all-wise 
Creator could send his Son, who is himself, into 
the world to be born of a virgin woman with- 
out the aid of a human father, to live and die 
after the manner of men, if he saw fit to do so. 
Such a statement is a mere assertion incapable 
of either verification or refutation, and is en- 
tirely foreign to the subject. The question for 
us to decide is not, " Could an Almighty God 
do this unusual thing?" but, "Have we any re- 
liable evidence that He has ever done so ? ' ' Su- 
perstition in all ages has answered this ques- 
tion in the affirmative. Stories of gods miracu- 
lously born of virgin women are among the 
most common of all religious traditions. His- 
tory records more than half a hundred woman- 
born gods, most of whom were born of virgin 
mothers, and without human fathers. Chief 
among these were Krishna, Buddha, Zoroaster, 
and Jesus. With the advancement of learning 



The Evolution of the Trinity 95 

we have one by one discarded these old super- 
stitions until now we have repudiated all save 
that concerning Jesus the Jew, and his super- 
human origin and character is now being more 
widely questioned than ever before. 

Those who believe in the miraculous birth, 
deity, and mission of Jesus, base their faith on 
a few passages found in certain ancient writ- 
ings of unknown authorship and uncertain date, 
called The Bible. All the Bible passages that 
can in any way be said to refer to the trinity 
of God and the deity of Jesus are to be found 
in the New Testament. The Old Testament is 
monotheistic throughout. The Jews, who gave 
us the Old Testament, were believers in one 
God only, and are so to this day. They have 
always disputed the trinity of God, and have 
always denied the miraculous birth and deity 
of Jesus. 

While there are certain so-called prophesies 
in the Old Testament which are reputed to have 
foretold the miraculous birth and deity of Jesus, 
a careful reading of them and their context will 
show that they had no reference to Jesus and 
were not fulfilled by his birth. Modern ortho- 
dox Bible scholars now concede as much. 

Of what value could any passages from the 
Bible, or any other book, be as evidence of the 
asserted superhuman conception and character 
of Jesus? A moment's reflection should con- 



96 The Evolution of Religion 

vince any thinking person that no one but the 
mother of Jesus could possibly have known 
that her child did or did not have a human 
father. The testimony of all others relative to 
this matter must of necessity be purely conjec- 
ture and hearsay. The beliefs of her family, 
the opinion of her neighbors, or the testimony 
of the Apostles on this subject can be of no 
possible value. Mary, the mother of Jesus, is 
the only one who could possibly give us any 
light on this subject, and she has not done so. 
While the evidence of all others relative to this 
matter is worthless, the testimony of those who 
presume to speak for Mary is eminently so, be- 
cause, as we shall show, they contradict each 
other. 

The first two chapters of the Gospel accord- 
ing to Matthew, and the first two chapters of 
the Gospel according to Luke, are the only 
places in the Bible that proclaim the wonder- 
ful news that the man Jesus had no human 
father, but was of supernatural origin. Even 
those who believe that Matthew and Luke wrote 
these gospels which bear their names, must ad- 
mit that neither of them could possibly have 
had any direct knowledge as to who was or was 
not the father of Jesus. The most they could 
have done was to have recorded what they had 
heard, or what they believed. But when we 
learn that the authors of these books are abso- 



The Evolution of the Trinity 97 

lutely unknown, and that they do not even 
claim to have seen Jesus; and when we find 
that these gospels were not written till late in 
the first century, and possibly not until about 
the middle of the second century, then the 
worthlessness of their testimony on this subject 
becomes more and more apparent. 

Let us examine the testimony offered by these 
and other Bible writers, and see what they tell 
us as to this matter. The question naturally 
arises, "Did Mary, the mother of Jesus, believe 
her child to be of supernatural origin, and with- 
out a human father?" If we accept as true the 
birth-stories told by Matthew and Luke, we 
must conclude that the wonderful origin of 
Jesus would be indellibly impressed upon his 
mother's memory. Had not an angel appeared 
unto her and told her of her good fortune ; had 
not Joseph, her husband, been told in a dream 
that his wife's unborn child was conceived of 
the Holy Ghost ; had not a host of angels made 
music when the child was born ; and had not a 
star pointed out to certain wise men from the 
east the birth-place of Mary's first-born, that 
they might worship him? Could the mother 
of Jesus forget all these things? Yet in the 
second chapter of Luke, we read how only a 
short time after these wonderful events had 
taken place, his parents took Jesus to the Tem- 
ple in Jerusalem; ^nd there one Simeon took 
• 7 



98 The Evolution of Religion 

the child Jesus in his arms and blessed him and 
prophesied wonderful things concerning him. 
And Luke says that Mary and Joseph marveled 
at the wonderful things Simeon said concern- 
ing the child. Again, when Jesus was twelve 
years old, his parents found him in the Temple 
at Jerusalem sitting in the midst of the doctors 
whom he had confounded by his wisdom. And 
Mary and Joseph were astonished, and chided 
him for wandering away from them. Mary 
said unto Jesus, ' l Thy father and I have sought 
thee sorrowing," and Jesus said, "How is it 
that ye sought me? Know ye not that I must 
be in my father's house?" and they understood 
not the sayings which he spake unto them. The 
angelic messenger who foretold this miracu- 
lous birth; the heavenly choir that made glad 
the night when this god was born; the travel- 
ing star that guided the wise men to his man- 
ger-cot that they might bow down before him, 
are all forgotten ; and his parents marvel when 
an old man prophesies wonderful things about 
their child; they are amazed when they find 
him showing unusual intelligence with the doc- 
tors ; and they do not understand him when he 
refers to the temple as his father's house. All, 
all the wonderful past is forgotten, and Mary, 
a simple Jewish matron, presumes to chide 
Jesus, the Almighty God, for wandering away 
from them. 



The Evolution of the Trinity 99 

Later, when Jesus began to proclaim his won- 
derful teachings, which have since made his 
name immortal, Matthew (XIII :55) records 
how the neighbors asked, "Is not this the car- 
penter's son?" Luke (IV:22) says they asked, 
"Is not this Joseph's son?" According to John. 
(VI:42) they said, "Is not this Jesus, the son 
of Joseph?" Even his brethren, says John 
(VII :5), did not believe in him ; and Mark (III : 
21) tells that his friends thought him insane. 
Evidently, his brethren and his friends knew 
nothing of his miraculous birth and his god-ship, 
or if they had ever heard of it, they did not be- 
lieve it. If they who knew Jesus and his 
mother had never heard or did not believe these 
wonderful birth-stories, what excuse have we 
for accepting them on no other testimony than 
that of two unknown writers who could not 
possibly have known that what they wrote was 
true. 

Did Jesus believe himself to be a virgin- 
born God, and one of the orthodox Trinity ? If 
he did, would he not have referred to this fact, 
more especially if our believing in it is essential 
to our salvation. Nowhere in all his declara- 
tions did Jesus refer to himself as being born 
of a virgin. Nowhere does he claim to be God 
nor equal to God. When the rich young man 
called him "good master," Jesus said, "Why 
fullest thou me good? There is none good but 



100 The Evolution of Religion 

one, that is God." In Gethsemane, he prayed, 
"Father let this cup pass." On Calvary, he 
cried, "My God! My God! Why hast thou for- 
saken meV True, he called God his father, 
but he also taught that God is the father of 
us all. He said to his disciples, "Call no man 
your father upon earth, for one is your father 
which is in Heaven" (Matt. XXIII :9). Before 
his ascension, he said unto them, "I ascend 
unto my father and to your father, to my God 
and your God" (John, XX:17). He taught his 
deciples to pray, "Our Father, who art in 
heaven." These words of Jesus would certain- 
ly imply that he was not God, and that others 
might bear the same relation to God that he 
bore. His great fundamental teaching was the 
fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man. 
He said, "For whosoever shall do the will of 
God, the same is my brother, my sister, and my 
mother" (Mark 111:35). 

While Jesus nowhere claims to be God or of 
virgin birth, among his sayings are many which 
imply some mysterious relationship between 
himself and his Heavenly Father. He speaks 
of being one with God, and he prays that his 
disciples may also be one even as he and the 
Father are (John XVII :11). Jesus' declaration 
that he was one with the Father did not imply 
that they were numerically one and the same; 
on the contrary, he distiuetly affirmed, "The 



The Evolution of the Trinity 101 

Father is greater than I (John XIV :28). Jesus' 
proclamation concerning himself was that he 
was the expected Messiah, the "Son of Man" of 
Jewish hopes. The Messiah expected by the 
Jews was not to be a god nor a half-god, but a 
man-born human being who would restore the 
Jewish people to their former political great- 
ness. When the people, inspired by his teach- 
ings, declared Jesus to be the expected Messiah, 
or Savior, he accepted the title, but gave the 
word a new significance by explaining that his 
was to be a spiritual kingdom, one not of this 
world. But enough, in no words of Jesus of 
which we have record is there anything to 
imply that he was a god born of a virgin. 

Nor can we say that the Apostles believed 
or taught that Jesus was a god of virgin birth. 
According to the Acts, he was "A man ap- 
proved of God", "God's holy servant", "a 
prophet", "the annointed one", "exalted by 
God to be a prince and a savior." True, Peter 
once said unto him, "Thou art the Christ, the 
son of the living God" ; but Peter, like the other 
disciples, had been taught and believed that all 
men may become sons of God. 

Paul's epistles are conceded by practically 
all Bible scholars to be the oldest writings 
of the New Testament, and the only ones of 
whose authorship we are at all certain. These 
Epistles are, therefore, of particular value in 



102 The Evolution of Religion 

trying to determine the early beliefs concern- 
ing Jesus. Nowhere does Paul say nor imply 
that Jesus was God nor of virgin birth. In his 
letter to the Romans (1 :3-4), he speaks of Jesus 
as one who "was born of the seed of David 
according to the flesh, who was declared to be 
the son of God with power according to the 
spirit of holiness. " Paul here recognizes some 
mysterious relationship, some mystic tie by 
which Jesus became a son of God, but that 
relationship was spiritual and not according 
to the flesh. In that same epistle (VIII :14), 
Paul further says, "For as many as are led of 
the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God." 
Again Paul says, "The Spirit itself beareth wit- 
ness with our spirit that we are the children of 
God, and if children, then heirs; heirs of God, 
and joint heirs with Jesus Christ (Eom. VIII: 
16-17.) Again, "For ye are all sons of God 
through faith in Jesus Christ" (Gal. 111:26). 
Again he says, "My little children of whom I 
am again in travail until Christ is formed in 
you." From this it would appear that Paul 
believed we may all become sons of God, even 
as Jesus was a son of God; not by being born 
of a virgin, but by some mystic spiritual birth. 
He seems to believe that we may all become 
Christs, or Saviors of men, by having Christ 
formed in us. 

There is but one passage in the Bible which 



The Evolution of the Trinity 103 

explicitly teaches a God-head of three persons 
which are all one. In the first Epistle of John 
(V:7), we read, "For there are three that bear 
record in Heaven; the Father, the Word, and 
the Holy Ghost, and these three are one." This 
passage, which is admitted by practically all 
Bible students to be a forgery, has wisely been 
omitted from the text of the Eevised Version. 

There are certain Bible passages which might 
be interpreted to imply that Jesus was more 
than human, though such passages may also 
usually be interpreted otherwise. As before 
stated, the only passages in the Bible which 
explicitly teach that Jesus was of superhuman 
origin and character, are those first two chap- 
ters of Matthew, and the first two chapters of 
Luke. These four chapters alone tell the won- 
derful story of the miraculous birth of Jesus. 
Even these chapters do not say nor imply that 
he was God or one of the God-head. They 
merely tell that he was sup ernatur ally born. 
There is nothing in these two books to indicate 
that they were written by those disciples whose 
names they bear. On the contrary, Bible crit- 
ics generally are agreed that the authors of 
these books are unknown. There is also go«:d 
authority for believing that these early chap- 
ters of Matthew and of Luke are of later data 
than the main text, and by different authors. 

There are many reasons why we cannot ac- 



104 The Evolution of Religion 

cept these chapters as reliable records of his- 
torical events. First, the events they record 
are contrary to reason and to universal human 
experience, and they are not corroborated by 
any other evidence. Neither the Gospel accord- 
ing to Mark, which is probably the oldest Gos- 
pel, nor the Gospel according to John, nor any 
of the Epistles in any way refer to such unusual 
events as the immaculate conception and mir- 
aculous birth of Jesus. It is hardly reasonable 
to suppose that all these who wrote of Jesus 
and his teachings would fail to mention such 
important events, these proofs of his god-ship, 
had they known of them ; more especially if, as 
the orthodox claims, our soul's salvation de- 
pends on our believing these things. Nor can 
we excuse them by saying that others had re- 
corded these events, for the books that do 
record them are conceded to be of later date 
than the Epistles of Paul, and most of the other 
books of the New Testament. The failure of 
these early writers to mention the virgin-birth 
and god-ship of Jesus lead but to one of two 
conclusions ; either the earlier Christian writers 
did not know of these wonderful birth stories, 
or they did not consider them of sufficient im- 
portance to mention. If none of the early New 
Testament writers knew of these things, then 
they can hardly be true. If they did know of 
them but did not think them worth speaking 



The Evolution of the Trinity 105 

about, then the churches of today might do 
well to follow their example. 

Not only do all the other writers, either by 
declaration or implication, refute these legends 
recorded by Matthew and Luke, but these two 
writers do not agree between themselves. Mat- 
thew says Jesus was born while Herod was 
king. Herod died four years before the begin- 
ning of the Christian era, so, according to 
Matthew, Jesus must have been born earlier 
than 4 B. C. Luke says Jesus was born when 
Quirenius was governor of Syria. Quirenius 
did not become governor of Syria until six 
years after the beginning of the Christian era, 
so, according to Luke, Jesus was not born 
earlier than 6 A. D. Thus we see these two 
biographers of Jesus differ more than ten years 
as to the date of his birth. 

Both of these writers make Jesus born in 
Bethlehem, and both declare him to be a de- 
scendant of David. Matthew implies that Beth- 
lehem was the home of his parents ; Luke says 
they were from Nazareth, and only went to 
Bethlehem to be enrolled for taxation. Matthew 
says certain wise men from the east followed 
a star to his birthplace and there worshiped 
him. Luke says that certain shepherds of that 
same country were told by an angel of the event 
and went to see the child. Matthew says that 
Herod the king, conspired to slay the child, and, 



106 The Evolution of Religion 

in order to accomplish his purpose, killed all 
the children under two years of age in Beth- 
lehem and the coast thereof. Jesus was saved 
by his parents fleeing with him to Egypt, where 
they tarried until the death of Herod. Luke 
says after the child was born, they stayed in 
Bethlehem until the days of Mary's purifica- 
tion were over, when they went quietly to 
Jerusalem and from there to Nazareth, from 
whence they went every year to Jerusalem to 
the feast of the Passover. No wise men from 
the east in Luke ; no traveling star ; no flight to 
Egypt ; no cruel king who kills all the children. 

The story of the wholesale slaughter of inno- 
cent children is sufficient in itself to show the 
historical inaccuracy and the mythical char- 
acter of the whole narrative. This dastardly 
crime is recognized by historians generally as 
pure fiction. None of the writers of that day, 
though giving in detail the events of their 
times, even so much as mention this crime, 
which, if true, would be the most cowardly act 
in the history of the world, and one which no 
historian would fail to record. 

Again, both Matthew and Luke trace the 
genealogy of Jesus through Joseph to David 
to show that he was of the royal line yet they 
do not agree as to his ancestors. Matthew 
names twenty-eight generations from David to 
Joseph, while Luke names forty-three. Aside 



The Evolution of the Trinity 107 

from Joseph and David, only three other names 
in these two lists agree. Not very reliable 
records, these. But even if they did agree, how 
could that make Jesus of the line of David if 
Joseph was not his father, but only his step- 
father? 

But John VII :42-43 records an incident which 
clearly contradicts the whole Bethlehem story. 
Some people who had heard Jesus thought he 
must be a prophet; others said he was the 
Christ, the Messiah; but some said, " Shall 
Christ come out of Galilee ? Hath not the Srip- 
ture said that Christ cometh out of the seed of 
David and out of the town of Bethlehem where 
David was ? So there was a division among the 
people because of him." This passage clearly 
implies that Jesus was not from Bethlehem, 
but from Galilee; that he was not of the seed 
of David, so could not be the Messiah. Neither 
Jesus, nor John, nor any of his disciples who 
were present disputed this statement, though 
by not doing so, some refused to accept Jesus 
as the Christ. 

Before we can believe that a god came to 
earth and inhabited a human body which was 
born of a virgin mother without the aid of a 
human father; before we can deny the known 
laws of nature, contradict human experience, 
and violate human reason, I submit that we 
should have more reliable evidence than that 



108 The Evolution of Religion 

of two unknown writers who disagree as to 
the ancestors of this wonderful being, as well 
as to the date of his birth, and most of the 
other details of his early life. But even if the 
Bible testimony on this subject was not con- 
tradictory and unreliable, we still could not 
accept this wonderful story. If we admit 
that a human being was once born without a 
human father, we cannot logically deny that 
the same thing may have happened before, and 
may happen again. If we accept as true the 
miraculous birth of Jesus, we should also ac- 
cept that of all the others in the long list of 
semi-gods and immortals in the pantheon of 
mythology. One is just as possible, just as prob- 
able, just as reasonable as the other. 

Neither can the miracles attributed to Jesus 
be offered as evidence that he was God. Accord- 
ing to the Scriptures, the Apostles also worked 
miracles, and yet they were but ordinary mor- 
tals. 

From the indefinite and contradictory Bible 
statements concerning him, we must conclude 
that we have no reliable evidence that Jesus, 
his parents, his family, or his Apostles ever 
believed or taught that he was a virgin-born 
god, one of that wonderful triple deity, the 
orthodox Trinity. 

Whence, then, came this belief? Reason and 
history must answer. After the wonderful life 



The Evolution of the Trinity 109 

and tragic death of Jesus, time and tradition 
deified him, made him a god, as they had done 
with Krishna, Buddha, Zoroaster, and other 
divinely human men before. Among the Jews, 
servants of God were called sons of God. 
Among the Greeks, their great men were often 
deified after death. There were many Jews 
and Greeks in the early Church. While the belief 
in the deity of Jesus was growing, the books of 
the New Testament were in the progress of 
formation. In the latter half of the first cen- 
tury, the Epistles of Paul were being written, 
as were most of the other Epistles, and also the 
Gospel according to Mark. All of these wrote 
of Jesus as they knew him, as a human being 
born in the ordinary manner, but one who by 
the spirit of holiness had become a son of God. 
The books of Matthew and Luke came a little 
later, and, not content with making Jesus a 
son of God according to the spirit of holiness, 
they recorded the growing traditions of their 
day, and by a miraculous physical birth, made 
him a son of God according to the flesh also. 

Nor is it surprising that the early Christians 
took readily to the idea that Jesus was a god. 
Both the Jews and the heathens referred con- 
stantly to the humble origin and ignominious 
death of Jesus as a reproach to Christianity. 
Other religions borrowed luster from the names 
of their founders; but this new superstition, 



110 The Evolution of Religion 

as it was called, was derived from an obscure 
individual who died as a criminal with every 
mark of infamy. 

But this material conception of Jesus and his 
Christ-hood, or son-ship to God, was by no 
means universal in the early Church. The Gos- 
pel according to John presents an entirely dif- 
ferent conception of the Great Teacher. This 
book, which was written later than the other 
Gospels, probably not before the middle of the 
second century, so surely not by the Apostle 
John, is of a very mystical tone. It tells 
us that, "In the beginning was the "Word, 
and the "Word was with God, and the Word was 
God." John then tells us how the Word later 
became flesh in the person of Jesus. These mys- 
tical passages in John are more readily under- 
stood when viewed in the light of the doctrine 
of the Logos. The Logos doctrine was a philo- 
sophical conception of God and the universe that 
was quite prevalent during the time of Jesus, 
having become widespread among the Greeks 
by the teachings of Plato. Philo, the great 
Jewish philosopher who lived during the first 
century, had done much to popularize it among 
the educated Jews. The Logos or Word, which 
was also spoken of as the Son or the only be- 
gotten Son, was a spiritual manifestation of 
God the Father, and was the creative power by 
which all things were made. John tells us 



The Evolution of the Trinity 111 

that this Word, or Logos, or Christos, was made 
flesh in the person of Jesus; but he makes no 
reference to a miraculous physical birth. Now 
we must not confound the man Jesus with the 
Word, or the Christ, which was made flesh in 
him. Jesus was the man, the human being. 
The Word, or Christ, was that creative prin- 
cipal of the Deity which, the author of the 
Gospel of John tells us, was especially manifest 
through the man Jesus whereby he became a 
Christ. Paul seemed to have recognized the 
Christ-birth in Jesus and in humanity in gen- 
eral when he says, "My little children of whom 
I am again in travail until Christ is formed in 
you" (Gal. IV:19). 

While the author of the Gospel according to 
John seems to regard Jesus as a human being, 
one through whom the Logos or Christ was 
especially manifest, or made flesh, we must not 
forget that there were many who did not be- 
lieve in a physical Jesus Christ. In the first 
Epistle of John (IV:2-3), we read that every- 
one who "confesseth that Jesus Christ is come 
in the flesh is of God, and every spirit that con- 
fesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the 
flesh is not of God." As clearly implied in this 
passage, at that date there were some who de- 
nied that Jesus Christ had a physical body. 
The belief that Christ existed in appearances 
only was quite comjnon among the early Chris- 
tians. 



112 The Evolution of Religion 

Aside from the Gospels of Matthew and Luke 
whose authors and dates are unknown, the first 
reference we have in all history to the deity of 
Jesus appears in a letter said to have been 
written by Pliny the Younger to the Emperor 
Trajan 112 A. D., or at least one hundred-seven- 
teen years after the Great Teacher was born. 
In this letter, the genuineness of which is ques- 
tionable, Pliny says the Christians were accus- 
tomed to meet before the break of day and sing 
a responsive hymn to ' l Christ as a God. ' ' This 
is the first record we have of his followers sing- 
ing to, or in any way worshiping Jesus, if in- 
deed this can be regarded as such. Even the 
disciples of Jesus paid him no such homage. 

Some of the Apostolic Fathers, who lived 
about this time, are reputed to be the authors 
of certain writings that have come down to us 
which refer to Jesus and his teachings. These 
writings are so full of interpolations and forg- 
eries that critics are by no means agreed as to 
the genuineness of any of them. But even if 
we accept these records as authentic, there is 
little in them to show the prevailing belief con- 
cerning Jesus. All these writings breathe a 
spirit of piety, but they make no attempt to 
formulate any definite theological dogmas. 
They sometimes refer to Jesus as "one called 
of God," as a "high priest of God," and as the 
"sob of God." Nowhere do they say he is an 



The Evolution of the Trinity 113 

eternal being equal to God, or a part of God. 
Only one of them, Ignatius, refers to Jesus as 
being of miraculous birth. He says, " There was 
concealed from the rulers of this world the 
virginity of Mary and the birth of our Lord, 
and the three renowned mysteries which were 
done in the tranquility of God from the stars. ' ' 
If this epistle of Ignatius is genuine, which 
many able critics do not believe, it was written 
about 115 A. D., and is the first time in all 
history that the virgin-birth of Jesus is even 
so much as mentioned, unless the first chapters 
of Matthew and Luke are of earlier date, but 
which were probably written later. 

The virgin birth of Jesus next appears more 
than a quarter of a century later, or about the 
middle of the second century, in the writings of 
Justin Martyr. Justin was a student and a be- 
liever in Platonic and Philonic philosophy be- 
fore he became a Christian, consequently, he 
was versed in the Logos doctrine of those 
schools. As we have seen, the Gospel according 
to John seems to teach that the Logos was 
especially manifest through Jesus. When Jus- 
tin Martyr accepted Christianity, he went still 
farther and declared that Jesus was that Logos. 
But he never taught that Jesus the Logos, or 
Son of God, was God, or one with God, or 
equal to God. He believed Jesus to be a sep- 
arate jand subordinate being. This identifica- 



114 The Evolution of Religion 

tion of the man Jesus with the Logos, which 
was the beginning of the deity of the Son of 
Man and of the orthodox Trinity, was just what 
we should have expected of Justin Martyr. He 
had a wonderful liking for the mysterious and 
the miraculous, and his writings are so full of 
angels and demons and wonders and supersti- 
tion as to make the author of the Arabian 
Nights look like an amateur. 

Other writings appear about this time which 
show a growing tendency to deify Jesus, but 
none of these make him co-equal or co-eternal 
with God. He is always a separate and sub- 
ordinate person. So the first shadowy out- 
lines of the miraculous birth and the deity of 
Jesus and the first semblance of the doctrine 
of the trinity of God began to appear in the 
Christian religion during the first half of the 
second century. Toward the close of that cen- 
tury, this doctrine became more prominent and 
persistent. Its advocates even then seemed to 
have no definite idea concerning the subject; 
they merely believed that Jesus Christ was in 
some way the Son of God and a subordinate 
person of the Triune God. The first detail doc- 
trine of the Trinity was not worked out till 
more than a century later. This was an age of 
spontaneous growth rather than of critical in- 
vestigation ; so among the early Christians there 
were many sects with many different beliefs, 



The Evolution of the Trinity 115 

One of these sects, the Gnostics, was very 
numerous in the early Church. They taught 
that Jesus was a highly evolved spiritual entity 
who had a special mission here on earth to per- 
form. Among them were many who did not 
believe that Jesus Christ had come in the flesh, 
but that he existed in appearance only. The 
teachings of the Gnostics were very mystical 
and embodied much that is now known as 
Theosophy. They did not agree among them- 
selves on every point, but they were all agreed 
that Jesus was not God. 

The Ebonites, another sect, arose about this 
time. They believed that Jesus was a prophet, 
the last of the Jewish prophets, and that Chris- 
tianity was but a new form of Judaism. Some 
of the Ebonites believed that Jesus was a mere 
man; others believed him to be an angel or an 
archangel; but none of them believed he was 
God. 

Then came Irenaeus, Tertullian, Clement, and 
Origen, four distinguished fathers in the early 
Church, whose ministry extended from about 
175 A. D. to 250 A. D. Clement and Origen 
were probably more famous for their writings 
and theology than any other Christians of the 
first two centuries. Like Justin Martyr, they 
were devotees of Greek and Alexandrian philos- 
ophy before becoming Christians ; and like him, 
jthey combined in a measure their philosophic 



116 The Evolution of Religion 

belief and their religious faith. They taught 
that there is one supreme, one uncreated God. 
They taught one Logos, or Son of God, who was 
a creature created by God and subordinate to 
Him, and who was incarnated in Jesus. They 
taught one Holy Ghost, who was subordinate 
to Jesus Christ. Thus the doctrine of the Trin- 
ity was growing, though as late as the middle 
of the third century, the orthodox Trinity — one 
God of three separate persons, all equal in 
glory, power and majesty — was unknown. 
More than a hundred years must yet pass be- 
fore this doctrine is born ; and more than three 
hundred years before it is adopted by the 
Church. 

Then came one Sabellus who lived and taught 
about two hundred years after the beginning of 
the Christian era. He and his followers argued 
that if God the Father and God the Son were 
one God, then the Father must have suffered 
and died with the Son. To avoid this predica- 
ment, they taught that God was one undivided 
essence, only one, but that he unfolds or mani- 
fests himself in human history as three, or as a 
Trinity. God, the Supreme Unity, appearing in 
the works of nature is God the Father; God 
manifesting in Jesus Christ to redeem men from 
their sin is God the Son; God manifesting in 
the hearts of his believers is God the Holy 
Ghost. Thus, according to Sabellus, the Trinity 



The Evolution of the Trinity 117 

is not a God-head of three separate persons, but 
is merely three separate activities, or mani- 
festations of the one supreme God. 

Pope Callistus had a different notion con- 
cerning God and the Trinity, so he excommuni- 
cated Sabellus for presuming to think for him- 
self. This conception of the Trinity, which was 
called Sabellianism or Monarchianism,' spread 
rapidly, and its advocates were very numerous 
around Rome and in Mesopotamia during the 
first four centuries. 

A modified form of Monarchianism was 
taught by Theodotus the Tanner. While he ac- 
cepted the doctrine of Sabellus that the three 
persons of the Trinity were but three manifesta- 
tions of the one supreme God, he taught that 
Jesus was a man like unto other men and that 
he became a Son of God' by adoption. This 
adoption of Jesus took place at his baptism-, 
when the spirit is said to have descended on 
him like a dove, and a voice said, "This is my 
beloved son in whom I am well pleased. ' ' Pope 
Victor I. soon relegated Theodotus outside the 
pales of the Church for having ideas of his 
own. The Monarchian doctrine of the Trinity 
still has advocates among those who would 
reconcile this dogma with reason. However, 
Monarchianism is essentially Unitarianism, with 
just enough Trinitarian flavoring to disguise it. 

Regardless of the many sects and beliefs in 



118 The Evolution of Religion 

the early Church, Christianity as a whole grew 
rapidly and threatened to supplant the ancient 
religion of Kome. Then Constantine, the Roman 
Emperor, during a lull in his bloody wars, de- 
clared himself a Christian, and by royal decree 
proclaimed Christianity the state religion of 
the Roman Empire. Henceforth, Constantine 
and his warlike legions made war in the name 
of Jesus, the Man of Peace. The historian 
Hodgkin says, l c Constantine was half convinced 
of the truth of Christianity, and wholly con- 
vinced of the policy of embracing it." Con- 
stantine himself said he desired to establish 
throughout his domain one definite and com- 
plete form of religion. 

About this time, Alexander, bishop of Alex- 
andria, and Arius, a presbyter, disagreed as to 
whether the Son of God had always existed or 
was created by the Father; and as to whether 
the Father and the Son were of the same sub- 
stance, or only of a similar substance. Alex- 
ander, the bishop, did not like to have his 
expert testimony as to God and the Trinity 
questioned by a presbyter, so he called a coun- 
cil of one hundred bishops and condemned and 
deposed Arius. Eusebius, bishop of Nicomedia, 
reinstated Arius, thereby starting a merry the- 
ological war that lasted more than a century. 
Arius gained a large following, and the ques- 
tion of whether the Father and the Son were 



The Evolution of the Trinity 119 

of the same substance or only of a similar sub- 
stance bade fair to disrupt the Christian 
Church. So fierce became the conflict that even 
the pagans were scandalized, and their thea- 
ters resounded with ridicule of the Christians. 

To settle this question, Constantine called 
together the first general council of the Church. 
This council met in the little town of Nicaea in 
Asia Minor 325 A. D. There was gathered 
there from Europe, Asia, and Africa some 
three hundred bishops beside numerous pres- 
byters and other churchmen. There in the 
arena met two great theological gladiators, 
Arius, who started the trouble, and Athanasius, 
the spokesman for Alexander, the bishop. 
Arius and his followers contended for one God, 
alone unoriginated, alone without birth, alone 
everlasting. They contended for one " only- 
begotten Son of God, God's own perfect 
creature, created from nothing by the will of the 
Father, born before eternal periods, before the 
beginning of time." They contended that if 
Jesus Christ was really the Son of God and be- 
gotten by the Father, there must have been a 
time when the Son was not, so the Son could 
not have been of the same substance as the 
Father; for the substance of the Father had 
always existed. 

Opposed to this doctrine was Athanasius who, 
contended that the Son and the Father were of 



120 The Evolution of Religion 

one substance; that there never was a time 
when the Son was not; for he was eternally 
begotten of the Father, and, therefore, had 
always existed. This theory that the Son was 
eternally begotten by the Father was a subter- 
fuge used by Athanasius to avoid the conclu- 
sions of Arius that if the Son were really a Son 
he must have been created, so could not be 
eternal with the Father, nor of the same sub- 
stance. Both sides agreed, as did all the early 
writers, that the Son was subordinate to the 
Father. The difference was as to whether the 
Son was really created from nothing by the 
Father, and, therefore, had not always existed, 
and so was not of the same substance as the 
Father, as claimed by Arius; or whether the 
Son had always existed with the Father, being 
eternally begotten by Him and so of the same 
substance, as claimed by Athanasius. "Same 
substance" as here used did not mean numerical 
unity, or that the Son and the Father were one. 
The idea of the oneness of the Trinity was a 
later conception. 

At first, it seemed that Arius and his follow- 
ers would receive the sanction of the council. 
But Constantine, in his royal robes and from his 
golden throne, carried the council by the pres- 
sure of his imperial influence against the judg- 
ment and inclination of the majority. Athan- 
asius and his followers won, and they tore the 



The Evolution of the Trinity 121 

creed of Arius to shreds and hurled anathemas 
at him and his teachings. Arius and his fol- 
lowers were banished, and his writings were 
burned. Thus was settled by a vote of human 
beings a question concerning which neither of 
the contending parties knew anything. Thus 
was settled what you and what I must believe 
if we are to reach Heaven by the orthodox 
route, for the creed adopted at the Council of 
Nicaea is the basis of the Christian dogma of 
the trinity of God. Here this dogma was offi- 
cially adopted and christened by the Christian 
Church. 

The creed as adopted at Nicaea is in part as 
follows: "We believe in one God, the Father 
Almighty, maker of all things both visible and 
invisible; and in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the 
Son of God; begotten of the Father, very God 
of very God, begotten not made, being of one 
substance with the Father, of whom all things 
were made ; who for us men and for our salva- 
tion, came down and was made flesh, made man, 
suffered and rose again on the third day, went 
up into the Heavens, and is to come again to 
judge the quick and the dead; and (we believe) 
in the Holy Ghost.' ' 

To this was appended a terrible curse against 
any who say that the Son is not of the same 
substance as the Father, or that there was a 
time when he was not. The adoption of this 



122 The Evolution of Religion 

creed was the first official attempt by the Chris- 
tian Church to dictate to its members what they 
should believe. Before the Council of Nicaea, 
the followers of Jesus were in a measure free 
to follow the dictates of their reason, but that 
council put a penalty on reason and made the 
Christian a slave to creed and dogma, a slavery 
that exists unto this day. 

But this council which presumed to settle the 
relations of the Father to the Son did not tell 
the whole truth. Later the venerable creed- 
makers learned more about God and the Trinity. 
So another council was called, which met in 
Constantinople 381 A. D., and the creed was 
brought up to date. Whereas, concerning the 
Third Person of the Trinity, the Council of 
Nicaea had merely said, "We believe in the 
Holy Ghost," at the second general council all 
the latest discoveries about the Holy Ghost 
were added, so that that part of the creed was 
made to read, "I believe in the Holy Ghost, 
the lord and giver of life, who proceedeth from 
the Father, who with the Father and the Son 
are worshipped and glorified, who spake by 
the prophets; and I believe in one Catholic 
and Apostolic Church; acknowledge one bap- 
tism for the remission of sins ; and look for the 
resurrection of the dead and the life of the 
world to come." 

So the Trinity evolved, the creeds grew, and 



The Evolution of the Trinity 123 

the things one must believe to be officially ad- 
mitted into Heaven became more and more 
numerous. Later the Council of Constantinople 
appended these words, "The creed of the three 
hundred-eighteen bishops assembled at Nicaea 
shall not be made void, but shall remain for- 
ever.' ■ The third general council which met at 
Ephesus added these words, "No person shall be 
allowed to bring forward, o"r to write, or to 
compose any other creed beside that which was 
settled by the Holy Fathers which were as- 
sembled in Nicaea." 

But in spite of this, the Trinity continued to 
evolve. As yet the Holy Ghost was not fully 
developed. So much time had been spent on 
the Father and the Son that the Holy Ghost 
had been somewhat neglected. The Council 
of Nicaea had been content to merely require a 
belief in the Holy Ghost. The Council of Con- 
stantinople had elaborated on the subject, and 
declared that the Holy Ghost proceeded from 
the Father, and it so proceeded for the next 
two hundred years. In the meantime, Augus- 
tine, the great Latin theologian of the early 
Church, had been teaching that the Father and 
the Son were co-equal and co-eternal. His doc- 
trine gradually gained ground in the Western 
Church until the Council of Toledo 589 A. D. 
when the equality of the Father and the Son 
was approved by the Church, and the Holy 



124 The Evolution of Religion 

Ghost was made to proceed from both the 
Father and the Son. 

Now as might have been suspected, there 
were some who objected to this. The Eastern 
or Greek Church, said that this double proces- 
sion or parentage of the Holy Ghost degraded 
the Trinity. So after long years of disputing 
and theologizing and much un-Christian like 
conduct on both sides, Pope Leo IX. settled 
the question by excommunicating the whole 
Eastern Church; thus the Greek Church was 
born — born by expulsion. The Nicene Creed 
with the Holy Ghost proceeding only from the 
Father is the Creed of the Greek Church unto 
this day. 

But while this Nicene Creed in its present 
form has existed for the last fifteen hundred 
years, the Trinity itself has continued to evolve. 
When the Council of Toledo affirmed that the 
Holy Ghost proceeded from both the Father 
and the Son, that was the first step taken by 
the Church toward accepting that the Son was 
in any way equal to the Father. With this 
equality once accepted, further evolution to 
the point of complete equality of all three per- 
sons was merely a matter of time. So by about 
the beginning of the sixth century, we find the 
doctrine of the Trinity fully developed and 
expounded in the Athanasian Creed. This Creed, 
though called Athanasian, has no connection 



The Evolution of the Trinity 125 

with Athanasius, whose theology was sanc- 
tioned by the Council of Nicaea. It was named 
for him, but was not written by him. This 
creed reads, "we worship one God in Trinity, 
and Trinity is Unity, neither confounding the 
persons, nor dividing the substance, for there 
is one person of the Father, another of the Son, 
and another of the Holy Ghost; but the God- 
head of the Father and of the Son, and of the 
Holy Ghost is all one, the glory equal, the majes- 
ty co-eternal." Then follows another terrible 
curse upon all who do not believe this creed. 
In the Athanasian Creed the Christian Church 
reaches its highest point of theological theoriz- 
ing; in it is found its most incomprehensible 
doctrine of the Trinity. 

So we have traced the evolution of the Trin- 
ity from the Lowly Nazarene, a servant, or Son 
of God. In the first century, we behold him a 
godly man ; in the second century, he is a demi- 
god, born of a virgin ; in the third century, he is 
identified with the Logos, or Son of God, of 
pagan philosophy ; in the fourth century, he be- 
comes co-eternal with the Father, though still 
a separate creature, and subordinate to him ; in 
the fifth century, he is co-equal with the Father 
in the generation of the Holy Ghost ; in the sixth 
century, he is one of three separate persons, all 
co-equal, all co-eternal, and yet all one God, of 
whom we must not confound the persons nor 



126 The Evolution of Religion 

divide the substance. From the sixth century 
until the present time, the Trinity has evolved 
but little. Through the Dark Ages it passed 
unchanged. With the reformation it was em- 
bodied, either in the same or in different lan- 
guage, in the Protestant creeds where it still 
remains a fundamental teaching of their faith. 
With the rise of the critical, historical, and 
scientific spirit of the last few decades, there 
has again appeared among some of the more 
advanced Trinitarians a tendency to consider 
the three so-called persons of the Trinity as 
merely three manifestations of one Supreme 
God, and not as three separate persons. But as 
yet this doctrine has received no official endorse- 
ment from the churches. Thus the doctrine of 
the Trinity has evolved in a circle, and we are 
again back to near the starting point, back to 
the Trinity as accepted by Sabellus and others 
in the early Church, and as believed and taught 
by other great religions, and by the pagan 
philosophers. Of course this conception of the 
Trinity must need make of Jesus a human 
being; for if God is but one person, instead of 
three, then there can be no Son of God in the 
orthodox meaning of the word. So Trinitarian- 
ism is evolving back to the old Unitarianism. 

During the long centuries, while the Church 
Fathers were evolving the doctrines of the Trin- 
ity and quarreling about the nature of God and 



The Evolution of the Trinity 127 

the origin of Jesus and of the Holy Spirit, the 
spirit of holiness found no lodgement in their 
hearts, and for a thousand years the Cim- 
merian gloom of the Dark Ages settled over 
them who should have been following the living 
example of him who wrote no creed. Truly has 
it been said, " Where there is the most theology, 
there is usually the least religion, ' ' and the first 
eighteen hundred years of the Christian era well 
demonstrated the truth of that statement. In- 
stead of the beatitudes of Jesus, this period gave 
us the anathemas of the Church. Instead of 
"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall 
see God," the Church said, "Cursed are they 
who believe not in the Trinity, for they shall 
never see God." Instead of "Blessed are the 
poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of 
Heaven," the Church said, "Cursed are the 
poor in faith, for theirs is the Kingdom of 
Hell." Instead of "Blessed are they who hunger 
and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be 
filled," the Church said, "Cursed are they who 
hunger and thirst after the truth, if that truth 
agrees not with our creed." 

But a new era is at hand. The dawn of re- 
ligious freedom is breaking and already we can 
see the glad light of a better and more liberal 
day. In the last hundred years the Church is 
beginning to place facts above fancy, works 
above words, and character above creed; but 



128 The Evolution of Religion 

this new reformation has only just begun. The 
creeds which Christianity has inherited from 
the Dark Ages must go. No dogmatic belief 
about the unknown can be a permanent part of 
any permanent religion. No more can blind 
belief in curious creeds suffice for Christ-like 
character. No more is a god the ideal toward 
which man must strive in vain ; the new ideal is 
a godly man, one to which we may all attain. 
With this as a basis of belief, this as a founda- 
tion of faith, inspired by the divinely human 
life and teachings of Jesus, that divinely human 
man, we, too, may some day hope to attain 
divine humanity. 

But methinks I hear some one say, "This 
destroys our God; this wrecks our faith; this 
takes away our Lord and leaves us only a godly 
man." Well, what matters it if somewhere in 
the great unknown there is one less god, if in 
his stead we have among the known one per- 
fect man. What the world needs is not more 
gods, but better men ; not more believers in the 
deity of Jesus, but more followers of his divine 
example. The world needs men who realize the 
soul alone is the real self, and who will not 
sacrifice that self for selfishness. 

Such a man was Jesus. Born of a captive 
race in an age of ignorance and selfishness, he 
was yet true to himself. By his great love and 
spotless life, he drew the people unto him. In- 



The Evolution of the Trinity 129 

spired by the beauty of his teachings, they 
declared him to be the expected Messiah, the 
coming king, who would deliver them from the 
bondage of the flesh. He heard his country's 
call. A dying nation was appealing to him. 
The groans of a servile race resounded in his 
ears. Memories of the departed glories of his 
people inspired him. The voice of patriotism 
bade him be up and doing. The hour to strike 
for Jewish freedom was at hand, and he was 
the man of the hour. The multitudes were 
with him; he had but to conciliate the priests 
and a united nation would rise against the 
pagan masters and restore the Chosen People. 
Visions of empire opened up before him. A 
kingdom was within his grasp. With the 
blood of his kind he could purchase temporal 
power. Over the bodies of the fallen foe he 
could march to an ancient throne, and above the 
groans of the dead and dying, an ancient race 
would proclaim him Jesus, King of the Jewsi 
The day was big with possibility. His disciples 
urged him on. But from the top of Calvary, 
outlined against a black and angry sky, the 
cold and cheerless arms of a cross beckoned him 
to a martyr's death that you and I might be- 
hold in him the divinely human ideal of a per- 
fect man ; and he turned his back on the throne 
of David and of Solomon and said, "My king- 
dom is not of this world !" 



CHAPTER V. 

The Gods That Are No More 



A Study in the Evolution of Religion 

The people of this world are of two ever 
antagonistic and opposing classes, the majority 
and the minority. From the unstoried days of 
a forgotten past, through all the long ages to 
the ever-present now, these two classes have 
ever been and doubtless ever will be. In the 
affairs of everyday life, the majority is called 
the wise, and the minority, the foolish. In 
politics, the majority is usually called the con- 
servative, and the minority, the radical. In 
religion, the majority is called the orthodox, 
and the minority, the unorthodox, heretics, free- 
thinkers, infidels. In the last analysis, or- 
thodoxy means majority, nothing more; unor- 
thodoxy or infidelity means minority, nothing 
else. 

The majority, the conservative, the orthodox 
are those who uphold or defend the existing 
order of things. They maintain that our pres- 
ent system of government is the best one ; that 
our modern conception of science is the correct 
one; that our present belief in religion is the 



The Gods That Are No More 131 

true one. With this class the only hope of prog- 
ress lies in conforming more closely to their 
present ideals. The minority, the unorthodox, 
the freethinkers, the infidels are those who be- 
lieve that our present system of government, 
our present conception of science, and our pres- 
ent beliefs in religion are not the best that can 
or will be. It is the constant endeavor of this 
class to make our institutions conform to our 
ever-growing ideals. The laws, customs, beliefs, 
and religions of his ancestors the unorthodox 
may accept as good for them and their day, but 
he refuses to be bound by them, hoping by the 
lessons they have taught, he may build more 
grandly for the future. The essence of unor- 
thodoxy is that we prove all things and hold 
fast only that which is true. 

There are varying degrees of unorthodoxy. 
There are those who tell us confidentially that 
their party platform is not as good as it should 
be; that our government is not just what it 
might be; that the creed of their church they 
cannot altogether accept ; but, they tell us, they 
are willing to let the existing order of things 
prevail, willing to let the old majority rule, 
rather than to disturb the confidence of the 
people in their party, their government, or their 
religion. Such people are of little value to 
the world; at best they are but brakes on the 
wheels of progress. The brakes m&y at times 



132 The Evolution of Religion 

be of service, but they never moved a load nor 
turned a wheel. 

Then there is another class of unorthodoxy. 
They have outgrown the old beliefs, but still 
cling to the old institutions, and vainly try to 
reinterpret the old creeds and doctrines to con- 
form to modern truths. These are they who 
would put the new wine in the old bottles. 
These are they who would build the new tem- 
ple of truth on the ancient foundation of super- 
stition. Such people constitute a large and 
growing part of the professedly orthodox. 
Could they only throw off their allegiance to 
the past, they would be of much service in 
building this temple. As it is, they cannot 
build; they can only remodel and repair the 
old and tottering structure. 

Then there is a class of unorthodox who em- 
phatically differ from the majority. They 
think they see the glorious ideals of better 
things ahead, and they boldly proclaim it from 
the house top. They are filled with a burning 
desire to point out the way to the unprogres- 
sive and unthinking majority. This class fur- 
nishes the world with its prophets, its philoso- 
phers, its reformers, its heroes, and its martyrs. 

Whether the unorthodox be mild or radical, 
whether they still cherish the old faiths or have 
discarded the ancient forms, they are all tend- 
ing in the same general direction — away from 



The Gods That 'Are No More 133 

the authority of the past. By different routes 
and at different rates of speed, they are all 
sailing upon the rough sea of progress, while 
the orthodox majority float serenely in the shal- 
low and placid waters of antiquity. Ortho- 
doxy means stagnation; unorthodoxy means 
progress. Orthodoxy is a call from the past, a 
voice from the grave, bidding us stand still. 
Orthodoxy is always dying. Unorthodoxy is a 
voice from the future, a call from the infinite, 
bidding us onward. Unorthodoxy is an eternal 
birth. 

All history is but the record of the successes 
and failures of the unorthodox. Every ad- 
vancement that has been made in the world has 
started with the minority, with the infidel. 
Every man who has risen above his fellowmen 
has done so by virtue of his heresy. Nor could 
it be otherwise ; for only those who are dissatis- 
fied with the present can improve the future; 
only those who differ from the majority can 
command attention; only those who are ahead 
of the procession can lead the procession. 

In considering the work of the unorthodox, 
we must remember that that which is orthodox 
in one country may be very unorthodox in an- 
other. Christianity is orthodoxy in America, 
but in Turkey the Christian is a dog of an infi- 
del. Catholicism is orthodoxy in Spain, and there 
the Protestant is a heretic. We must also re- 



134 The Evolution of Religion 

member that that which is unorthodox in one 
age may be orthodox in another. A century 
ago to doubt that God so loved the world that 
he would ultimately burn the majority of its 
inhabitants in a hell of eternal fire, was to for- 
feit one's right to be called a Christian. Today 
such doubt does not of itself make one an infi- 
del. Nor must we forget that one may be very 
orthodox in one line of thought, and yet very 
unorthodox in another. Columbus may have 
been orthodox on the Fall of Man and the Atone- 
ment, but he was very unorthodox concerning 
the teachings of the Church as to the contour of 
the earth. It was in the line of his unorthodoxy 
that he was of value to the world. Copernicus 
and Galileo may have been orthodox concern- 
ing God and the Trinity, but they were very 
unorthodox about Genesis and astronomy. It 
was their unorthodoxy, their infidelity, that 
made their names immortal. 

In religion, as in other fields of thought, 
there never has been, and never will be, any 
advancement that has not come through the 
heretics. Every creed that has been changed, 
every dogma that is dead, every religion that 
has passed away, every god that is no more has 
received its death blow from the hands of in- 
fidels. Sometimes the infidels have been in 
the Church and sometimes they have been out 
of it; sometimes they have been mild, and 



The Gods That Are No More 135 

sometimes they have been radical ; but one and 
all of the prophets of progress have been unor- 
thodox. 

Orthodoxy in religion first appeared in the 
world when the untutored savage builded an 
altar on the banks of the Eiver Time and paid 
homage to the gods of his ancestors. Unor- 
thodoxy first appeared upon the scene when the 
first worshiper began to think, and to doubt the 
realties and powers of these ancient gods. With 
doubts of the old faith came desires for a new 
and a better one, and thus the evolution of 
religion had its beginning in infidelity. Doubt 
and infidelity are the first steps toward prog- 
ress. Growth necessitates change; ancient 
creeds must pass away, old gods must go, that 
better may come. The history of religious 
evolution is writ in the stories of the gods that 
are no more. 

Long years ago, in the childhood of history, 
when the Chosen People were a race of slaves 
in a foreign land, their masters, the Egyptians, 
were the decadent remnant of a once glorious 
civilization. This ancient people builded and 
wrought so wonderfully in architecture, science 
and religion that, after a lapse of more than 
forty centuries, we contemplate the ruins of 
their mighty works with wonder and admira- 
tion. Upon their pyramids and monuments the 
Egyptians have left for us the records of their 



136 The Ei'olution of Religion 

hopes and fears, their doubts and faiths. From 
these we learn of their religion and their triune 
deity. We learn that they worshiped Osiris, 
the father. Isis. the mother, and Horns, the vir- 
gin-born son. Isis. the virgin mother — mother 
of god — is represented as bearing the infant 
Horus in her arms, while beside them is the 
cross, mysterious emblem of life and religion. 
The birthday of Horus. the son. was celebrated 
on the 25th of December. The Egyptians be- 
lieved in the immortality of the soul, and in a 
judgment after death. They believed that in 
about a thousand years the spirit of the dead 
would come again to claim the body which once 
was his: hence they embalmed the corpse as 
best they could, that the departed spirit, his 
millennium of wandering over, might not return 
and be left desolate. 

Great was ancient Egypt: great were her 
gods and her religion. Then came the unor- 
thodox and. despite the protests of the priests, 
the ancient faith is now no more in all the land. 
Osiris, the god of gods, has passed away ; Is 
the holy mother, is forgotten ; Horus. the virgin- 
born of god. is but a memory. Infidelity has 
laid its heavy hand upon them and they are not. 
Thrice a thousand years has passed and yet no 
disembodied spirit of the ancient dead has 
come again to claim the body which once was 
his. The gods of Egypt are no more, and their 
far-famed temples are in ruins. 



The Gods That Are No More 137 

When the Children of Israel were a band of 
roving barbarians, tending their flocks and 
herds in Asia Minor, their neighbors, the Per- 
sians, were an ancient and mighty people, 
whose birth was in the night of time. Like unto 
their fathers, this people worshiped Ormuzd, god 
of light, father of all. In the fullness of time 
Ormuzd, the god of gods, sent his son, Mith- 
ras, the mediator, to take upon himself the 
form of man. As Tammuz, he was born of a 
virgin woman, and they celebrated his birthday 
on the 25th of December. Zoroaster, the law- 
giver of Persia, the great prophet of Ormuzd, 
a mighty son of god, was conceived by a ray of 
the divine reason and he, too, was born of a 
virgin woman. To these mighty gods, the Per- 
sians erected temples of purest marble, re- 
splendent in beauty and wonderful in architec- 
ture- Upon their golden altars burned eternal- 
ly the sacred fires. Here Cyrus the Great paid 
homage to the gods; here Darius and Xerxes 
offered sacrifice. All now is changed. The un- 
orthodox, the infidel, has come and gone, and 
with him have gone these gods of yore. 
Ormuzd, the god of light, is dying; Mithras, 
the mediator, is passing; dead and dying are 
these ancient gods, and the tireless winds heap 
the desert sands around the crumbling ruins 
of their sacred temples, — solemn tombs of 
mighty gods that are no more. 



138 The Evolution of Religion 

In India the people of the long ago wor- 
shiped the Hindu trinity- — Brahma, Vishnu, 
Siva — three gods all in one. As Krishna, Vish- 
nu was born of a virgin woman, and heavenly- 
hosts and traveling stars proclaimed his com- 
ing. To him the sons of India raised their 
voices in adoration. Of his wisdom, powers, 
and goodness their poets sang. Long years this 
ancient orthodoxy held its sway; then the infi- 
del cried aloud, and the doubter questioned the 
faith of his fathers. Came then Buddha, the 
heretic, he that was born of a virgin woman, 
and he taught a new religion ; yet a little while 
and unorthodoxy waxed strong, and Buddhism 
became orthodoxy for a season. But now again 
the infidel infests the land, and the gods of 
ancient India are on the wane. Krishna and 
Buddha, the virgin-born, have lost their heaven- 
ly parentage; their sacred temples are crum- 
bling into dust ; and alien gods and strange re- 
ligions now pervade the holy places. 

No gods were more revered or real than those 
of classic Greece; on top of Mt. Olympus they 
lived, and from that serene height they ruled 
the destinies of the world. Curious mixtures 
of human and divine were they; some were 
born of stately matrons and some of virgin 
mothers. For the glory of their gods, the 
Greeks erected wondrous temples, enriched 
with finest sculpture and bedecked with richest 



The Gods That Are No More 139 

&rt. Of them her poets wrote their sweetest 
songs. The gods of Greece were mighty gods 
until the voice of the infidel was heard in the 
land. Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and other 
heretics forsook the ancient faith. Despite the 
opposition of the people and the protests of the 
priests, with ruthless hands they tore the veil 
of beauty from the form of superstition, and to 
the vulgar multitude exposed the gods in all 
their nakedness. Strange gods and new re- 
ligions now profane their sacred temples. The 
deities that were once the glory of the Greeks, 
the gods immortalized in art and song, now 
serve but to point a moral or adorn a passing 
tale. Gone, all gone, are these ancient deities, 
and Mt. Olympus ' holy heights are desolate and 
godless. 

A similar fate has befallen the gods of mighty 
Borne. They who once led her martial hosts to 
victory and blessed her days of peace with 
plenty are now forsaken by all the sons of men. 
In the days of her prosperity, religious tolera- 
tion prevailed in Kome, and to the Eternal 
City, each bringing their gods with them, came 
the people of every nation and the votaries of 
every faith. What a variety of religions ! What 
a galaxy of gods in Rome ! Where all gods are 
tolerated, no god can long survive. Man-made 
gods are jealous gods; only by monopoly can 
they live and thrive. So one by one the gods of 



140 The Evolution of Religion 

Rome and of all the pagan world jostled each 
other from their heavenly thrones. Fallen and 
forsaken now are they; and none are so lowly 
as to do them reverence. 

But man will have his gods, and the Greeks 
and Romans were not left godless. From the 
east, the home of supernatural religion, eame 
the followers of Jehovah, bringing their god 
with them. This Jehovah, which at first was 
but one of many gods, had grown to be the 
chief, and later, the only god of the Chosen Peo- 
ple. Like that of all the other gods, his birth 
was in the childhood of the race and is shroud- 
ed in impenetrable mystery. From the early 
Hebrew Scriptures, we learn that in his early 
day this Jehovah was a cruel, jealous, deceit- 
ful creature like unto his followers. He de- 
lighted in the sufferings and misfortunes of his 
enemies, but could be appeased by burnt offer- 
ings and bribed by bloody sacrifices. Even 
human sacrifice to Jehovah was not unknown. 
His followers built a box, called an ark, in 
which this god was supposed to abide. So 
sacred was this box that none dared look into 
it nor so much as touch it. Uzzah was struck 
dead for laying his hand upon it; and because 
they dared to peep beneath the lid, this god 
slew more than fifty thousand of the Chosen 
People. Strange how orthodox gods do hate 
the investigator. 



The Gods That Are No More 141 

As the Jews became more civilized, they out- 
grew their childish beliefs. A god in a box 
was no longer adequate to the dignity and de- 
mands of a growing nation, so Jehovah became 
less crude, less material, and within the ark the 
priests placed two slabs of stone, upon which, 
tradition says, Jehovah with his finger wrote 
the Ten Commandments. They erected a tent, 
called a tabernacle, in which was an inner room, 
or Holy of Holies, for Jehovah and for the box, 
and none save the priests might enter there. 
Thus have the gods ever concealed themselves 
from the vulgar gaze of the multitude; thus 
have the priests ever surrounded religion with 
mystery. As the Jews evolved, Jehovah lost 
many of his ungodly qualities, and his ark and 
slabs of stone disappeared from history, and no 
man knoweth their hiding place unto this day. 
The Jews became a great people, Jehovah a 
great god, and Judaism a great religion. For 
the people, the priests offered sacrifices to Jeho- 
vah; and for Jehovah, they transmitted mes- 
sages to the people. The priests were a sort of 
go-between for god and man. 

From time to time, heretics and infidels ap- 
peared among the followers of Jehovah, and 
despite the protests of the priests, they con- 
demned the old formalism, rejected the old 
faith, and proclaimed a better one. Micah, the 
prophet, condemned the ancient liturgies and 



142 The Evolution of Religion 

bloody sacrifices. He cried, "What doth Jeho- 
vah require of thee but to do justice, to love 
mercy, and to walk humbly with thy god?" 
The writer of Proverbs said, "To do righteous- 
ness and justice is more acceptable than sacri- 
fice. " "What heresy in these old prophets to 
discredit the ancient institutions; what infidel- 
ity in them to disregard creed and dogma, and 
make religion only a matter of justice, mercy 
and humility! Eank infidels were these old 
prophets. John the Baptist outgrew the old 
faith and, condemning the orthodox as a gen- 
eration of vipers, he called them to repentance. 
Then came Jesus, the great heretic, the great 
arch-infidel, and he called the hosts of ortho- 
doxy liars, thieves and robbers. He condemned 
the old faith and offered a better one. He said 
unto them, ' ' It was said by them of olden times, 
Thou shalt do this and do this ; but I say unto 
you do that and do that." Some there were 
who gave heed unto him, but the majority, the 
orthodox, said he was crazy, was possessed of a 
devil ; and they abused him and accursed him of 
infidelity. With cries of ' ' Crucify him, crucify 
him," they dragged him to the judgment hall 
and to the martyr's death. But the truth can- 
not be crucified. In the martyr's grave of 
Jesus, the heretic, was born a new faith; in 
the tomb of Jesus, the infidel, was laid the 
foundation of a new religion, The little band 



The Gods That Are No More 143 

of unorthodox who followed Jesus despite ridi- 
cule and persecution, grew until they became 
numerous, until they came into power and be- 
came orthodox. As ever, with power and au- 
thority came intolerance to those of opposing 
beliefs ; and the orthodox followers of the unor- 
thodox Jesus builded a wonderfully incompre- 
hensible creed and demanded that all men be- 
lieve it. 

Came then, as of old, the unorthodox; came 
then Wiclif and Luther and Calvin and Knox 
and other heretics ; and they disputed the claims 
of the majority; they denied the authority of 
the past. As of old, the priests anathematized 
and the faithful persecuted the heretic for the 
glory of God and for the good of religion. But 
the minority, the infidel, grew and multiplied, 
and laid the foundation of a new belief, and 
Protestantism waxed strong and became ortho- 
doxy. With numbers came power and intoler- 
ance toward those of opposing beliefs ; and the 
Protestants builded themselves wonderfully in- 
comprehensible creeds, and demanded that all 
men believe them on pain of eternal damna- 
tion. 

Came then again the infidel ; came then again 
the unorthodox, the Unitarian, the Universalist, 
and the freethinker; as of old, they protested 
against the tyranny of the majority, against 
the authority of the past. As of old, ridi- 



144 The Evolution of Religion 

cule and persecution have been their lot ; but 
they have won the day against the hosts of 
orthodoxy. Through their efforts, religious 
freedom is now well nigh universal; free- 
thought flourishes in the land ; heresy pervades 
the churches; and the changing creeds foretell 
the passing of the ancient faith. "So fleet the 
works of man; back to the earth again, an- 
cient and holy things fade like a dream." 

Yes, the Christian religion, like all else in na- 
ture, is constantly changing. The God of mod- 
ern orthodoxy is no more like the ancient Jeho- 
vah than modern Christianity is like that of the 
Dark Ages. The original Jehovah, who was a 
cruel, jealous creature made in the image of 
man, has greatly changed. The creeds now tell 
us that God is "without body parts, or pas- 
sions." That Jehovah who walked in the Gar- 
den of Eden in the cool of the day and talked 
with Adam ; the Jehovah whom Jacob saw face 
to face, — that god is dead ; no man hath heard 
his voice, nor seen his face for low these many 
years. That cruel, angry Jehovah who com- 
manded the Israelites to kill the captive women 
and children, and despoil the maidens, is now 
so full of loving kindness and tender mercies 
that he even notes the sparrow's fall. That 
heathen deity who once delighted in bloody 
sacrifices has lost his taste for gore, and the 
incense of burning flesh no more can bribe his 



The Gods That Are No More 145 

blessing nor appease his anger. That capricious 
ruler who, at the command of Joshua, stayed 
the sun in his eternal rounds of night and day, 
will not now suspend one law of nature for all 
the prayers of all the saints in Christendom. 
That inhumane and unjust king who once was 
said to burn in a hell of eternal fire the major- 
ity of his subjects, is now ever kind and loving ; 
his mercy endureth for ever and ever to the 
prodigal ; and the fires of hell are burning low. 
The god who once had a chosen people is now 
the father of us all. Even Jesus the erstwhile 
virgin-born of God is becoming human, like 
unto you and me- Truly gods born of women 
are of few days and doomed to pass away. 

Jehovah the unchangeable has changed much. 
The old god and the old religion have made way 
for better ones ; but the end is not yet,, Evolu- 
tion has not reached finality; progress has not 
attained perfection. Just as the unorthodoxy 
of the past is the orthodoxy of today, so will the 
unorthodoxy of today be the orthodoxy of to- 
morrow, and then a new unorthodoxy, a new 
infidelity will rise and blaze the trail of prog- 
ress through the forest of the future toward the 
eternal ideal. The religions of the past have 
not survived because, weighted down by an- 
cient traditions, fettered by superhuman au- 
thority, they could not evolve as rapidly as 
their adherents: so one by oue these ancient 



146 The Evolution of Religion 

faiths have served their turn and passed away. 
Only a growing, changing, evolving religion can 
long endure. Man's ideals are his gods; his 
aspirations are his religion. As he evolves, his 
ideals must advance; his gods must change or 
die; his religion must improve or pass away. 
Modern Joshuas may command the sun of prog- 
ress to stand still in the intellectual heavens 
that the day of their god and their religion may 
be prolonged, but that sun will heed them not. 
Evolution is universal ; progress is eternal. Gods 
come and go; sects rise and fall; creeds take 
their turn — for these are but the steps by which 
we rise from a lowly past to heights sublime. 
But the spirit of religion, the struggle of the 
soul for truth and light, goes ever on and on 
through all the changing forms and faiths. 

Eeligion is an evolution, not a revelation; 
true religion is a life, not a belief; righteous- 
ness is independent of church or creed. A 
skeptic may be very religious; an infidel may 
be a great saint. When we realize that one 
who has broken from the authority of the past 
in other lines, is apt to disregard that authority 
in religion also, we can then understand why so 
many of the great and good have been unortho- 
dox in matters of faith. We can then under- 
stand why some who have become unorthodox 
in creed have also become unorthodox in con- 
duct and mov als. We cau tften understand why 



The Gods That Are No More 147 

those who are the conservators of the past, the 
priest and the Church, have so often been ar- 
rayed against science and progress. 

Even in these later days, when the Christian 
Church has discarded many of her outgrown 
dogmas, revised her ancient creeds, and remod- 
eled her antique god along more modern lines, 
we yet find that many of the grandest souls and 
greatest minds still disregard or reject those 
doctrines which orthodoxy now holds as funda- 
mental; we yet find most of the apostles of 
progress are unorthodox in religion. By way 
of illustration, I might recall how Mazzini, a 
Unitarian, and Garibaldi, an atheist, gave hope 
and freedom to modern Italy ; how Danton and 
Mirabeau, two atheists, strove to save France 
alike from the injustices of the past and from 
the bloody excesses of the Revolution; how 
Gambetta and Victor Hugo, two infidels, were 
the guiding stars at the birth of the Third 
Republic ; how Frederick the Great, an atheist, 
gave the world a united Germany; how Louis 
Kossuth, a Unitarian, was the inspiration of 
Hungary's freedom; how Charles Bradlaugh, 
an atheist, struck the death blow to religious 
intolerance in England. These and many more 
we might cite from foreign lands to show how 
the unorthodox have held the banners of prog- 
ress to the breeze, but we need not cross the 
Jbriny deep Jo see their noble work 



148 The Evolution of Religion 

Of tEe American colonies, none gave greater 
liberty and justice to its people than that 
founded by William Penn, the unitarian 
Quaker, he who was imprisoned for denying 
the Trinity. When the heel of the oppressor 
was upon the neck of the Colonies, when for- 
eign soldiers were quartered in American homes 
to compel submission to the royal tyrants, there 
came to us from across the seas one who said: 
" Where liberty is not, there is my country." 
This alien was the infidel Thomas Paine. He 
wrote a book called "Common Sense" in which 
he condemned the traditions and the govern- 
ments of the past before the bar of reason and 
justice. This book, says Dr. Rush, "burst from 
the press with an effect that has rarely been 
produced by type and paper in any age or coun- 
try." The wild dream of freedom which ema- 
nated from the brain of this heretic became an 
epidemic that swept the land. Only a few 
months and our fathers called together the Con- 
tinental Congress which adopted that immortal 
document, the Declaration of Independence, 
penned by the master hand of Thomas Jeffer- 
son, an infidel. But famous books and immor- 
tal documents will not alone wrest freedom 
from the hands of tyranny, nor strike the fet- 
ters from the feet of slavery. Leaders were 
necessary to control and direct the fires of pa- 
triotism which Paine hftd dcme so n*uch to kin- 



The Gods That Are No More 149 

die, so George Washington, another unortho- 
dox, was selected as commander of the army 
of freedom. 

Writ in our country's reddest blood are the 
cruel records of the struggles and sufferings of 
patriotism while laboring to give birth to a new 
nation. Hallowed by age and sacred memories 
are the nightmare tales of Valley Forge, when 
despair in vain sat brooding over the smoulder- 
ing fires of hope, and the cold, dark night of 
disappointment settled like a pall o'er the sons 
of liberty. Just when the night was darkest, 
the infidel Paine again brought hope and cheer 
in his book, "The Crisis," whose opening words, 
"These are the times that try men's souls," are 
known to every school boy. Then from far-off 
France, came Lafayette, an alien and an infidel, 
to fight for freedom and humanity. In that 
dark hour, Benjamin Franklin, the American 
Socrates, an infidel, a deist, prevailed upon the 
Court of France to send the aid that made our 
freedom possible. 

When the long dark night was over and the 
morn of liberty's day began to break, our 
fathers gathered together to formulate a plan 
of government. After due deliberation, these 
great men adopted our far-famed Constitution, 
as it came from the hand of Gouverneur Morris, 
an infidel. From this sacred document, they 
purposely omitted all reference to a god, de- 



150 The Evolution of Religion 

creeing that religion and government should 
forever be separate, that you and I might be 
free indeed. 

It was most fitting that the immortal Wash- 
ington, a freethinker in religion, one unbiased 
by dogma and unbound by creed, should have 
been the first president of these United States, 
a country dedicated to freedom. It was also 
befitting that John Adams, an unorthodox 
Christian, a Unitarian, should have been the 
second head of our great nation; and that 
Thomas Jefferson, an infidel, a deist, should 
have succeeded him. 

I am not unaware that there are those who 
would use the prestige of Washington's fair 
name to add luster to orthodoxy. However, 
such claims can not be substantiated. Bishop 
White and Dr. Abercrombie, who were the rec- 
tors of the church which Washington attended 
for nearly a quarter of a century, tell us that 
the Father of his Country was not a Christian, 
but was a deist. If we need further evidence, 
we have it in the testimony of Gouverneur Mor- 
ris and from the pen of Thomas Jefferson. 

Just as the men who were first in laying the 
foundation of our country were freethinkers, so 
also were they who were first in preserving the 
Union. When the question of the superiority 
of the state to that of the nation was threaten- 
ing to disrupt the Republic, it was Daniel Web- 



The Gods That r Are No More 151 

ster, the unorthodox, the Unitarian, whose fam- 
ous words, "Union and liberty, now and for- 
ever, one and inseparable, ' ' echoed and re- 
echoed from coast to coast. 

"When the dark cloud of slavery began to 
lower and break along the horizon, and when 
orthodox churches and conferences were con- 
doning or defending slavery on the authority 
of the Scriptures, William Lloyd Garrison, 
Frederick Douglass, Theodore Parker, and other 
freethinkers were denying the authority of the 
Bible and condemning slavery as wrong. When 
the fast-gathering clouds bespoke the breaking 
of the coming storm, Abraham Lincoln and 
Stephen A. Douglas, two freethinkers, con- 
tended for the privilege of directing the Ship 
of State through the troubled waters of the ap- 
proaching tempest. To Lincoln, the unortho- 
dox, the deist, fell the great burden and the un- 
dying glory. When the storm broke in all its 
tempestuous fury, and the fierce southern winds 
beat heavily upon her and threatened destruc- 
tion, when captain and crew had dark forebod- 
ings of impending disaster, it was the master 
hand of Grant, the unorthodox, the infidel, who 
safely guided the ship to a haven of peace. 

In this country, dedicated to freedom, all are 
not yet free. Despite her protests, womankind 
is still denied the rights of citizenship. She has 
not been without her champions, and foremost 



i52 The Evolution of Religion 

among them have been the unorthodox. The 
first great advocate of woman's rights in this 
country was Margaret Fuller, a Unitarian ; and 
the four great leaders of her cause, Elizabeth 
Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Julia Ward 
Howe, and Mary A. Livermore, were all un- 
orthodox. 

It is not alone in public life and activities 
that the unorthodox in religion have taken the 
initiative. In the world of science, we might 
recall how Sir Isaac Newton was an Arian; 
how Agassiz, Priestly, Lyell, Draper, and Fiske 
were Unitarians ; how Humboldt, Tyndall, Dar- 
win, Lamark, Huxley, Haeckel, and most of the 
other great scientists have been skeptics. 

Nearly all of the great philosophers have 
been unorthodox. Of these, we might mention 
Averroes, Mimonides, Bruno, Des Cartes, Spino- 
za, Hobbes, Comte, Bacon, Lock, Kant, Fichte, 
Hume, Buchner, Mills, and Spencer. 

Among the great historians, we might tell 
how Gibbon was a skeptic ; how Bancroft, Mot- 
ley, Prescott, Parkman, Palfrey, Sparks, Par- 
ton, Lea, and Hildreth were Unitarians; how 
Draper, Buckle, Grote, Eenan, Froude, and 
Lecky were unorthodox ; and how a strong un- 
dercurrent of freethought flows through all 
modern history. 

But it is in the realm of general literature, 
that we see the great and overwhelming influ- 



The Gods Thai Are No More 153 

fcnce of freethought. Ealph Waldo Emerson, 
Henry Thoreau, Bayard Taylor, Margaret Ful- 
ler, Bret Harte, Louisa M. Alcott, and Edward 
Everett Hale were Unitarians. Victor Hugo, 
Honore de Balzac, Voltaire, Rousseau, Emile 
Zola, George Sands, George Eliot, Ibsen, Tol- 
stoi, John Euskin, Richard Carlisle, William 
Morris, Harriet Martineau, Mrs. Humphrey 
Ward, Nathaniel Hawthorne, John Burroughs, 
Horace Greely, and Robert Louis Stevenson 
were all unorthodox. 

Of the great poets, John Milton was an 
Arian; William Cullen Bryant, James Russell 
Lowell, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Oliver 
Wendell Holmes were Unitarians; John Green- 
leaf Whittier was a unitarian Quaker; Edgar 
Allen Poe was a non-Christian theist; Goethe 
was a pantheist; Schiller was a deist; Byron 
and Shelley were atheists. Heinrich Heine, 
Robert Browning, Arthur Hough Clough, Rob- 
ert Burns, John Keats, Alfred Tennyson, Rud- 
yard Kipling, Algernon Swinburne, and Walt 
Whitman are all unorthodox. The religion of 
the incomparable Shakespeare is unknown. 

These are but few of the great souls that 
shine in the glorious galaxy of the unorthodox. 
These are but few compared with the great and 
growing number of those who nominally pro- 
fess the old faith, but who at heart are disbe- 
lievers. Paradoxical as it may seem, the greater 



154 The Evolution of Religion 

number of the unorthodox of today are to be 
found in the ranks of the Church itself. The 
so-called higher criticism, whieh is but infidelity 
under a new name and in a more palatable 
form, is rapidly receiving recognition. In Ger- 
many, Holland, England and America the 
higher critics are in control of most of the the- 
ological seminaries, and are gradually replac- 
ing the more orthodox in the pulpits. This can 
mean but one thing; the next generation of 
preachers will be higher critics, and the second 
generation in the pews will accept the new 
teachings, and then the old orthodoxy will be 
no more. Freethought will again have tri- 
umphed, and the infidel of today will tomorrow 
be enrolled among the saints. 

Thus hath it ever been; the doubter is the 
apostle of advancement, the infidel is *the 
prophet of progress. Yet we still sometimes 
hear the faithful murmur in their sleep, c ' What 
have the unorthodox ever done for the world ? ' 9 
What have they not done for the world? But 
for the unorthodox, civilized man would still 
be in the savage state; but for the doubter, 
science would still be superstition ; but for the 
heretic, we would yet be worshipping the deities 
of our ancestors and offering sacrifices to an- 
cient idols ; but for the infidels who have gone 
before, you and I would today be wooing the 
favor of the gods with the blood of bulls and 
goats. 



The Gods That Are No More 155 

If you would know what the unorthodox have 
done, follow the long and weary course of re- 
ligious evolution from the lowest superstition of 
the past to the highest spirituality of today; 
observe the outgrown beliefs and discarded 
faiths; reflect upon the fleeting forms and 
changing creeds; see the fallen idols that lie 
along the path; behold the ancient deities that 
are dead ; and gaze upon the rifled ruins of their 
sacred shrines. Would you know what the in- 
fidel has done, compare the gods that are with 
the gods that are no more. 



CHAPTER VI. 

Evolved Religion 

or 

How Shall We Live? 

An analysis of religion in its various phases 
shows it to be composed of two elements, mixed 
in various proportions, each separate and dis- 
tinct, each capable of existing by itself, yet each 
acting and reacting upon the other so as to de- 
termine the character of the whole. These two 
component parts of religion are theology and 
ethics. 

Theology consists of theories about man and 
his relation to the unknown and the unknow- 
able. Ethics consists of data about man and 
his relations to his fellow men. Theology tells 
us about gods and how to please them. Ethics 
teaches about man and how to improve him. 
Theology is a thing of the stars ; ethics, a thing 
of the streets. 

Theology and speculative philosophy deal 
with the same subjects, the unknown and the 
unknowable, but they differ in their claims and 
character. Philosophy offers hypotheses based 
on the authority of human understanding. Phil- 
osophy dogmatises not, is tolerant, and favors 
progress. Theology offers affirmations based 



Evolved Religion 157 

on alleged superhuman revelations. Theology 
is dogmatic, is intolerant to conflicting doc- 
trines, and is opposed to progress. Theology is 
revealed or supernatural religion. 

Ethics though often associated with or sanc- 
tioned by theology is independent of it. Ethics 
is founded not on superhuman revelation, but on 
the human authority of human reason and ex- 
perience. Ethics is elastic, ever changing, ever 
improving with the progress of human evolu- 
tion. Elevating ethics are not peculiar to any 
theology or religion. They are found among 
Trinitarians and Unitarians; Christians and 
pagans ; Jews and gentiles, theists and atheists. 
Ethics is natural or evolved religion. 

In the name of religion, theology has strewn 
her roughest rocks along the path of progress. 
In the name of religion she has crowned with 
sharpest thorns the brow of innocents. She 
has burned with fire her dogmas into the minds 
of men, and writ her creeds with blood wrung 
warm from human hearts. She has turned 
brother against brother and caused tears of bit- 
terness to flow in anguish from weeping eyes. 
Theology has discredited, disgraced, degraded 
religion till many have cast it from them as a 
thing of evil. 

In the name of religion, ethics has strewn 
her rarest roses Upon the road of righteousness. 
In the name of religion she has crowned with 



158 The Evolution of Religion 

garlands green all saintly souls. She has en- 
graven in words of love her precepts upon the 
human heart and writ with reason her moral 
maxims in the minds of men. She has made all 
men brothers and caused tears of joy to flow in 
ecstacy from happy eyes. Ethics has made re- 
ligion a thing of beauty and of gladness, and 
millions have raised their voices to call it 
blessed. 

We who have discarded the old faiths are not 
fighting good ethics, but bad theology. We 
would not discredit religion, but would show its 
true origin and purpose. Those who do not 
distinguish between theology and ethics have 
failed to grasp the nature and possibilities of 
religion. Religion is man's search for truth 
and light, his longing for the ideal. It is his 
response to the call of the infinite ; his struggle 
for unison with the universe. True religion is 
limited to no time or place ; peculiar to no people 
or party, confined to no church or creed. When- 
ever men yearn for truth, wherever they aspire 
to the ideal, then and there the spirit of true re- 
ligion is found. The form, the outer garment 
of religion, is temporal but the essence, the 
spirit, is eternal. 

He who would realize the ideal must first 
idealize the real ; he who would attain that har- 
mony, that unison, with the infinite must first seek 
harmony with the finite. He who would become 



Evolved Religion 159 

one with God must first be one with all man- 
kind, both high and low. Religious evolution 
begins with the known, not with the unknown ; 
holiness is works, not words; salvation comes 
through service ; peace through progress. There 
are no cross-cuts, no royal roads to righteous- 
ness. But a way there is, a path so plain that 
the wayfaring man, though a fool, need not err 
therein. He who would promote the powers 
that make for progress needs no ancient reve- 
lation to guide him. He who would follow the 
road of righteousness needs no superhuman au- 
thority to point out the way. Reason will tell 
him that that which is best for most is best for 
all. Experience will teach him that that must 
be right which is for the greatest good of the 
greatest number. Utility is the basis of morali- 
ty, the foundation of ethics, the essence of re- 
ligion. The efforts of the individual to pro- 
mote the interests of the majority is the road 
to righteousness ; the only path to perfect peace. 
This is the evolution of religion, and the re- 
ligion of evolution. 

Vain is the talk of a Plan of Salvation 
whereby man may hope to reap what he has not 
sown; idle is the tale of a Vicarious Atone- 
ment whereby he may escape the consequences 
of his conduct; hopeless the desire for Remis- 
sion of Sins that will cancel his moral indebt- 
edness; worthless the pattering prayers and 



160 The Evolution of Religion 

solemn sacraments of prating priests. The reign 
of caprice has vanished with the night, and law, 
enthroned upon the universe now rules the day. 
Absolute justice must be meted out to all, from 
the largest constellation to the smallest atom. 
If this be not done then universal law is a uni- 
versal lie, the world is a fraud, and Deity is a 
devil. 

If law is universal, if there are no effects with- 
out causes, no causes without effects, then noth- 
ing ever happens ; what man sows he will reap, 
and what he reaps he has sown. If matter is 
indestructible, is it not also uncreatable? if no 
thing really ever ceases to exist, then did any 
thing really ever have a beginning? and has not 
the "J" in some form ever lived, and shall it 
ever cease to be ? May not the harvest It reaps 
today, all forgotten, have been sown in some 
dead yesterday; and the seed It sows today, 
may it not ripen for the harvest in some unborn 
tomorrow? Who can say that the seed-time 
was not, and that the harvest will not be? 

If the world is ruled by universal law, if 
causes beget effects, and effects are born of 
causes, then in some way, at some time, and in 
some place every debt must be paid, every 
struggle must be rewarded. Law, universal and 
unchangeable ; justice, inevitable and impartial ; 
time, endless and eternal ; progress, perpetually 
toward perfection ; hope, here and hereafter, — 



Evolved Religion 161 

can desire ask more ? can despair fear less ? can 
revelation offer a fairer faith, a more promis- 
ing prospect, a grander goal? 

If the way at times seems hard and the day 
seems long ; if the goal elude thy search, and if, 
like a mirage, the ideal lead thee ever on across 
a desert drear; if, as thy sun descends, the 
vision fades to nothingness and twilight dark- 
ening into night leaves thee upon life's track- 
less sands disconsolate, let not hope despair, 
for on the morrow thou mayest yet reach that 
reality whose reflection led thee on through all 
thy day. 



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